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sritzthefirefly · 3 years

Text

The Not-so French Mistake

Pairing: Slight Dean x reader

Word Count: 1.9k

Warnings: Language

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. Any and all comments on this are appreciated. I’m sorry for any grammatical errors that I might have made. This is my first fanfiction (as a one-shot, I've written a few earlier in poetry form) so please go easy on me.

“You are going to die.”, he states nonchalantly, as if three men entering your house and telling you that you are going to die is an everyday occurrence.

“I…WHAT?!”, I shout, my eyes round as saucers.

Well, today was a seemingly normal day. Until the seemingly normal day wasn’t as seemingly normal as I thought it would be.

2 hours earlier

“Hey, I’ll be leaving now”, my best friend said as she packed the small handbag she always carried around with her.

“Don’t forget the pickle jar and then come back 15 minutes later telling me you forgot the one thing I reminded you about”, I shouted to her from the top of the stairs.

She turned around to pick up the jar from the centre table when her eyes landed on me and she whistled. I pulled the drawstrings of my silk dressing gown tighter as I walked down the stairs.

“Ooooh, would you look at that, someone’s looking good. So, are you going to sleep after I’m gone, or are you going to have some company tonight?”

“I…..I just can’t……not so soon after...ummm……I know I’m stupid but I just wanted to feel good about myself”

She closed the few steps between us and hugged me tightly.

“Hey, you know he’s an asshole. His words don’t count, ok? No guy has the right to make you feel bad about yourself”, she said, pulling away.

“But he…….”

“No missy, you listen here, he’s an idiot who doesn’t deserve you. He should feel lucky he’s not in town or I would’ve kicked him so hard in the balls that impregnating a woman would’ve been a foreign concept to him.”

I gave her a small smile.

“Thanks for hyping me up, love. I’m now going to have ice cream and cry my heart out to sad rom-coms.”

“Bitch, you hate rom-coms. You’re just going to binge-watch Supernatural and you’re not telling me that because you won’t admit that you’re obsessed with the show”.

“Okay, okay whatever……Aren’t you getting late for your train?”

She looked at her watch.

“Oh shit! Bye, see you later.” she said as she ran out of the door, slamming it behind her. I sighed to myself and walked over to the TV, switching it on.

“Self-care time for me now!”, I said to myself, as I opened the fridge to get my favorite ice-cream when suddenly, the doorbell rings. I immediately turned my head towards the centre table and sure enough, the pickle jar was there.

Shaking my head, I picked up her precious jar and walked over to the door, pulling it open.

“I knew you……..”, I stopped short when I saw who was standing outside.

There, standing on my porch were, none other than, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki.

And then I woke up.

Yeah, if only it happened that way.

I knew I was looking like an absolute fool in front of them, opening and closing my mouth like a fish, my eyes wide and my breath short as I stood there, taking in the two handsome men adorning my doorstep. They were dressed in their Sam and Dean outfits -plaid, over layers of plaid- it seemed like a scene straight out of a set.

“Hi! You’re Y/N right?”, Jared said in his usual husky voice while Jensen stood beside him, strangely staring at me with something akin to awe in his eyes.

“W…what? I…uh…yeah…I…I am Y/N”, I somehow managed to choke out.

“You’re awesome”, Jensen Ackles breathed out with a sigh with literal heart-eyes in my direction. He cleared his throat and blinked twice and then seemed to step out of his reverie. He gave me a small smile and looked me up and down with a small smirk and I blushed furiously. Wait, was Jensen Ackles checking me out?!

Okay, so there were either of these two things going on- either I was dreaming or I had completely lost my mind. But since I had already pinched myself and well, that damn pinch did hurt, so the situation pretty much tilted towards the latter side. I mean, Jensen Ackles knows me and he thinks I am awesome?!

“Yep, definitely not a fan”, Jared whispers somewhat sarcastically to Jensen to which he replies under his breath with a “Shut up, Sammy!”

I would have paid more attention to what Jensen said had I not had my whole focus on Jared’s last words.

“Ummm…..excuse me? No offense but I’m standing right here and you can rest assured that I am 100% a fan, of both of you. If you don’t believe me, ask me anything about Supernatural.”, I say, crossing my hands across my chest.

“Wha-Supernatural? Like the book Supernatural? You have that here too?”, Jensen asks seemingly surprised.

Alright, is this a game for their show? I thought to myself, utterly confused and dazed. They seem to know my name and well, address too and that can be the only logical explanation as to why Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are here, on my doorstep. But I couldn’t see any cameras nearby. Maybe they were hidden? Maybe I was meant to be taken by surprise? Oh shit, did I just challenge them right now? Was this being filmed? My mind rushed with a million things- ‘Oh god, I must be looking so stupid right now, acting like a blobfish instead of doing anything!’

I opened my mouth to say something, anything at all, when Jared cut through.

“Ummm I’m sorry, Y/N, but it’s not really a good idea to be standing outside and talking. I promise we’ll explain everything. Can we please come inside and talk?”

“I….uh…..yeah sure. Come inside please.”, I was about to ask what their deal was but changed my mind when I saw Jensen nervously looking around and then back at me, pleadingly.

I closed the door behind me as they settled on the plush red sofa. I walked across the room and sat on the chair facing them.

“Y/N”, Jared started. “There’s no easy way to say this but I’m Sam Winchester and this is my brother Dean. Like, from Supernatural.”

“Ummm…. I’m aware? Despite your contrary belief, I told you I was a fan.”, I said, confused.

“You’re our fan?!”, Jensen asked, somewhat stunned. “Haha sweetheart, am I living my dream!”, he added, his emerald eyes twinkling.

I stared at him through my eyelashes.

“Hold up, quick question, are you a Dean girl or Sam girl?”

“Dean, not now…..”, Jared sighed.

“Dean girl!”, I blurted out, immediately blushing deeply. Jensen’s entire face lit up and I hurriedly added, “No offense to Jared here.”

“Jared? You mean Jared Pada-whatshisname?”, Jensen asked incredulously.

“Padalecki, Dean”

“Son of a bitch! Fake us lives in the same universe as her!”

I started laughing and the both of them turned towards me quizzically.

“Ummm what is this? Some spin-off of The French Mistake?”, I asked.

“The French what?”, Jared looked at me, his eyebrow raised.

“That’s not important right now. Y/N, I know, it’s hard to believe us right now, but we are not your TV actors-we are not Jensen and Jared. I am the actual Dean Winchester and he is my brother, Sam Winchester. The trickster, the archangel Gabriel, owed us a favor and he let us travel into your universe.... Sweetheart please, you have to believe me. I umm uh, I have been a-”

I stood straight up from my chair, angrily.

“I’m sorry but what kind of prank is this? Going to people’s houses and-”, I started angrily when suddenly the entire room got spontaneously flooded with an immensely bright light.

“Cover your eyes!”, a deep, somewhat robotic voice filled the air and I immediately did so to lessen the risk of my precious peepers being completely burned out by an unknown source of dazzling light in my seemingly normal house in the middle of a seemingly normal (absolutely weird) day.

Slowly, the light faded.

And there stood Misha Collins-

No, that could not possibly be Misha. Unless Misha had suddenly evolved to be able to exhibit bioluminescence or had sprouted long black wings from the back of his trench coat or had learned to hover like a bee in mid-air. No, definitely not Misha.

That means, this must…this must be-

“Holy mother of God”, I gasped out.

“I….am….not….the….I am the son of God”, he said, walking across the room to sit beside Jar-no, no......Sam.

Holy shit! CASTIEL?! That means that all this time, Jens- Dean, had not been lying. I collapsed on my chair, my mind, not being able to form a single coherent thought. Dean leaped up from the sofa and rushed to my side.

“Darling….darling, look for yourself, that-”

“He is Castiel.”, I said, boring into Dean’s green eyes, they brought me comfort. “I believe you…… Dean.”

A look passed between Sam and Dean and Dean immediately held my hand and squeezed my palm as an act of reassurance as he beamed at me.

Sam got up from his chair and smiled at me, “Thanks to Cas here, you believe us. At last. I thought you were two seconds away from throwing us out.”

I snorted. A really ugly snort through my nose. In front of three delicious-looking men, especially Dean, who was somehow still looking at me like I was God’s gift to mankind. Hah, no wonder I was single.

I cleared my throat to relieve the awkwardness and continued,

“Well, in my defense, you guys were acting real creepy.”

Yeah sure, not even in my wildest dreams would I actually throw Jensen and Jared out of my house, no matter how creepy they act, but they didn’t need to know that.

“But how…why……..”, I started asking the questions bothering me.

“Umm well, yeah, about that…”, Dean started, gulping.

Castiel walked over and looked at me with downcast eyes.

“You are going to die.”, he stated nonchalantly, as if three men entering into your house and telling you that you are going to die is an everyday occurrence.

“I…WHAT?!”, I shouted, my eyes wide.

Now

“CAS!”, Sam and Dean both exclaim at him at the same time.

“She was asking.…..”

“No Cas, not like that!”, Sam tells him prickly.

“Please tell me what the hell is going on! Why….How am I going to die? What’s happening?!”, I say, hiding my face with my hair.

“Darling, promise me you won’t freak out.”, Dean says, staring straight into my soul. “You are a character from a book in our universe. My favourite book. And trust me, this...you…. I am a huge fan of you. Have been, since I was a child. Now you see, few months ago, we stumbled into your universe when Gabriel pranked us. And then I saw you. I met you. The real you....just….perfect….And I just wanted to.....I mean..... I came back...I came back because…..”

“Because?”

“I know everything. I know how the book ends and I have come back here to save you, darling.”

Tagging - @thatmotleygirl @msmarvelouswinchester @athenapotter @mvdeanw @bts-spnlvr12 @holylulusworld @jensengirl83

#supernatural #dean winchester #dean #dean x y/n #dean x you #dean x reader #spn fanfic #spn fanfiction #dean winchester one shot

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piratewithvigor · 3 years

Text

My first thought in regard to every band that gets played on my radio station

ACDC: Every dad’s favourite band

Adams, Bryan: Every mom’s favourite singer until Michael Buble came along

Aerosmith: haha they thought Vince Neil was a lady

Alice Cooper: he’s a Game Of Thrones fanboy and I have proof

Alice In Chains: my sister doesn’t like them because she decided AC were Alice Cooper’s initials ONLY

Allman Brothers Band: good music for dropping acid to

Allman, Gregg: That’s too many Gs for one name

Animals: House Of The Rising Sun, or who even cares

Argent: Sometimes Hold Your Head Up is really catchy

Asia: Tuesdays

Autograph: one of the members went on to be a pharmacist

Bachman-Turner Overdrive: There are just so many pop culture jokes about Taking Care Of Business that whatever I say won’t be as funny

Bad Company: with their song; Bad Company, off their album; Bad Company

Benatar, Pat: Always getting her confused with Patti Smith

Black Crowes: I like them for Lickin, but it doesn’t seem to exist outside of one shoddy video on youtube and my old CD

Blackfoot: this band name feels kind of racy

Black Sabbath: Dio was not better or worse than Ozzy; just different

Blondie: I like Call Me, but Blondie confuses me stylistically

Blue Oyster Cult: MORE COWBELL

Bon Jovi: Hello, childhood trauma, I missed you

Boston: ONE GUY. ONE GUY DID IT ALL AND NO ONE KNOWS

Bowie, David: Don’t let your children watch The Man Who Fell To Earth, or David Bowie’s will end up being the third penis they see in life

Browne, Jackson: Another musician ruined by Supernatural

Buffalo Springfield: Jack Nicholson was at the riot they sing about

Burdon, Eric: no ideas, brain empty

Bush: ditto

Candlebox: ditto once more. Who are these people?

Cars: This band feels so gay and so straight at the same time, I can only assume they’re the poster children of bisexual panic

Cheap Trick: I played Dream Police on Guitar Hero so fucking much because it was the only song anyone who played with me could keep up with

Chicago: Chicago 30 exists, but they do not have 30 albums. Fucking riddle me that

Clapton, Eric: 6 discs in one Greatest Hits is too many. That’s called “re releasing your discography”

Cochrane, Tom: For some reason, everyone thinks Rascal Flats did it better

Cocker, Joe: Belushi did it right

Collective Soul: who?

Collins, Phil: If his biggest hits were done by MCR, they would be emo anthems, but because he’s 5′6″ and from the 80s, they’re not

Cream: *Vietnam flashbacks on the hippie side*

CCR: *Vietnam flashbacks on the war side*

CSNY: David Crosby; meh

Deep Purple: THEY’RE SO MUCH MORE THAN SMOKE ON THE WATER

Def Leppard: the only music for when you’re a heartbroken bitch but also a sexy one

Derek And The Dominos: Clapton and ‘Layla’ broke up

Derringer, Rick: Tom Petty if he was from the midwest

Dio: You thought it was an anime reference, but it was me, Dio

Dire Straits: You can tell how bigoted a radio station is based on how much of Money For Nothing they censor

Doobie Brothers: I have yet to smoke weed, but I listen to the Doobies, and I think that’s pretty close

Dylan, Bob: I take back everything I said about him in my youth

Eagles: Hotel California isn’t their best song, but the memes that come from it are second to none

Edgar Winter Group: @the--blackdahlia

Electric Light Orchestra: Actually an orchestra and sound a fuckton like George Harrison

ELO: I really hesitate to ask what happens with the 7 virgins and a mule

Essex, David: no prominent memories of him

Fabulous Thunderbirds: cannot spell

Faces: Who on earth thought that was a good album name?

Faith No More: I got nothing

Fixx: One Thing Leads To Another is a damn bop

Fleetwood Mac: I ain’t straight, but I’m simply not enough of a witch to enjoy them to full potential

Fogerty, John: He got sued cause he sounded like himself

Foghat: Slow Ride slowly becoming less coherent feels like a drug trip

Foo Fighters: He was just excited to buy a grill

Ford, Lita: deserved better

Foreigner: dramatically overplayed

Frampton, Peter: a masterful user of the talk box

Free: dramatically underplayed

Gabriel, Peter: leaving Genesis changed him a lot

Genesis: if someone likes Genesis, clarify the era, because yes, it does matter

Georgia Satellites: sing like you have a cactus in your ass

Golden Earring: Twilight Zone slaps, but it doesn’t slap as hard as this station thinks it does

Grand Funk Railroad: Funk

Grateful Dead: I like their aesthetic more than their music

Great White: there are so many fucking shark jokes

Greenbaum, Norman: makes me think of Subway for some reason

Green Day: the first of the emo revolution

Greg Kihn Band: RocKihnRoll is literally the most clever album name I’ve ever seen

Guns N Roses: They have more than three good songs, but radio stations never recognize that

Hagar, Sammy: I’m still trying to figure out where he lived to take 16 hours to get to LA driving 55 and how fucking fast was he driving beforehand?

Harrison, George: He went from religious to rock, and if he had continued rocking, he would have gotten too cool

Head East: I respect people who use breakfast foods as album names

Heart: Magic Man and Barracuda are played at least once every goddamn day. They’re not even the best songs!

Hendrix, Jimi: I have both a cousin and a sibling named after Hendrix references

Henley, Don: Dirty Laundry gives me too much inspiration

Hollies: Somehow sound like they’re both from the 60s and the 80s at the same time

Idol, Billy: he’s doing well for himself

INXS: Terminator vibes

Iris, Donnie: knockoff Roy Orbison

James Gang: too many funks

Jane’s Addiction: if TMNT had a grunge band representative

Jefferson Airplane: *assorted cheers*

Jefferson Starship: *assorted boos*

Jethro Tull: The only band to make you feel not cool enough to play the flute

Jett, Joan: icon

J. Geils Band: I requested them on the radio once and it got played

Joel, Billy: he really did just air everybody’s business like that

John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band: literally wtf is that name

John, Elton: yarn Elton sits in my basement, unstaring. Please someone take him from me

Joplin, Janis: Queen

Journey: Stop overplaying Don’t Stop Believing. It takes away from the rest of the repetoire

Judas Priest: literally started the gay leather aesthetic

Kansas: another fucking band Supernatural stole

Kenny Wayne Shepherd: the man confuses me to the point where he isn’t in the right place alphabetically

Kiss: Mick Mars and I will simply have to disagree on the subject

Kravitz, Lenny: runaway vibes

Led Zeppelin: Fucking fight me if you don’t think they’re the most talented band (maybe not the most talented individually, but collectively, no one comes close)

Lennon, John: My least favourite Beatle for reasons

Live: I got nothin

Living Colour: slap a decent amount

Loverboy: do you not get TURNT the fuck up to the big Loverboy hits? Who hurt you??

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Sweet Home Alabama is a Neil Young diss track

Marshall Tucker Band: no opinion

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band: VERY STRONG OPINIONS THAT THEY AREN’T GOOD

McCartney, Paul/Wings: Power couple

Meatloaf: I have nothing but respect for a man who willingly named himself Meatloaf

Mellencamp, John: voted cutest lesbian of 1987

Metallica: I liked their appearance on Jimmy Fallon

Midnight Oil: I get them confused for Talking Heads a lot

Modern English: who?

Molly Hatchet: Hollies vibes, but also Georgia Satellites vibes

Money, Eddie: DAN AVIDAN, IF YOU SEE THIS, COVER TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT

Motley Crue: Stan Mick Mars and John Corabi. They’re the only ones who deserve it

Mott The Hoople: no one loves them except for David Bowie

Mountain: props for naming an album ‘Climbing’

Nazareth: I want to make a John Mulaney joke here, but I can never come up with one

Nicks, Stevie: witch queen

Night Ranger: I get them confused with Urge Overkill

Nirvana: Kurt Cobain was the ally grunge needed

Nova, Aldo: he’s Canadian, at least

Nugent, Ted: *serves a ghost as jerky*

Offspring: nothing here

Osbourne, Ozzy: this bitch crazy

Outfield: Your Love is kind of a sketchy song, but it slaps hard

Palmer, Robert: low quality Eddie Money

Pearl Jam: *grunts in Eddie Vedder*

Petty, Tom: I have so many feelings about Tom Petty and they are all good

Pink Floyd: which one is Pink?

Plant, Robert: solo career is a crapshoot, but his voice is unparalleled

Poison: I want them to write a song called ‘Alice Cooper’

Pretenders: I want to say good things, but I have nothing to say

Queen: A doctor of astrophysics, a screaming girl, a disco queen and a diva walk into a bar. It’s Queen; they’re there to play a gig

Queensryche: neutral opinion

Quiet Riot: they got big because of a song they hated. I love that

Rafferty, Gerry: the second-sexiest sax opening in all of music

Rainbow: Ritchie Blackmore created something very magnificent

Ram Jam: one good song and they didn’t even write it

Ratt: I’m sure they have more than Round And Round, but I don’t know it

RHCP: funky, but if you have paid money to hear them, you’re going to The Bad Place (I don’t make the rules)

Red Rider: basically Golden Earring

Reed, Lou: Walk On The Wild Side would be such a cool song if it wasn’t so dull

REM: American Tragically Hip

REO Speedwagon: Props for having a dad joke as an album title

Rolling Stones: Never in my life could I imagine the drummer being named anything but Charlie

Rush: How to make being uncool the coolest fucking shit

Santana: The world needs more Santana

Scandal: There’s something really funny about The Warrior being my brother’s “song” with his girlfriend

Scorpions: Was Wind Of Change written by the CIA? Only the spotify podcast I got an ad for once could say

Seger, Bob: A different variety of Eric Clapton (frankly a better variety, but that’s just me)

Simple Minds: we ALL forgot about you

Skid Row: Sebastian Bach is prettier than all of us

Soundgarden: music that makes you feel like you dunked your head underwater

Springsteen, Bruce: my arch-nemesis. Maybe someday, he’ll find out about it

Squeeze: according to my friends, the stupidest band name ever, but they’re theatre kids, so you know

Squier, Billy: If he can make it through 1984 alive, you can make it through whatever bad day you’re having

Stealers Wheel: Yet another band who I always mistake for George Harrison

Steely Dan: my house’s nickname for the Robber in Settlers Of Catan

Steppenwolf: Either makes me think of Jay & Silent Bob, Jack Nicholson, or that time I had to cut 6lbs of onions

Steve Miller Band: when you’re in the right mood, they slap hard

Stewart, Rod: my soundtrack to summer 2015

Stills, Stephen: Love The One You’re With Is Catchy, but the lyrics are questionable

Stone Temple Pilots: the only band to write a song about goo you smear on yourself

Stray Cats: an obscene amount of merch is available for them

Styx: Supernatural would have ruined them for me too if I hadn’t been into them previously.

Supertramp: I hunted for Breakfast In America for two years and it was worth every hunt

Sweet: I will never understand my two-month obsession with Ballroom Blitz when I was 15, but it was legit all I listened to

Talking Heads: you may find yourself in a pizza hut. And you may find yourself in a taco bell. And you may find yourself at the combination pizza hut and taco bell. And you may ask yourself; ‘how did I get here?’

Temple Of The Dog: I keep confusing them for Nazareth

Ten Years After: somehow still relevant

Tesla: not the car or the dude

The Beatles: Evokes a lot of opinions from people. Mine is that I love them

The Clash: I showed my sister the ‘Lock The Taskbar’ vine ONCE and it still kills her

The Doors: evokes teenage terror from deep within my soul

The Guess Who: Canada’s answer to confusing question-themed band names

The Kinks: kinky

The Police: wrote the theme of 2020 and everyone somehow forgot it was about a teacher resisting becoming a pedophile

The Ramones: playing all of their songs in a row wouldn’t take more than 2 hours

The Romantics: you don’t think you know them, but if you’ve seen Shrek 2, you have

The Who: If someone can explain Tommy to me, I’d be glad to hear it

The Zombies: I think they happened because of the 60s

Thin Lizzy: Could the boys maybe leave town?

Thorogood, George: blues, but make it modern

Toto: the most memed song behind All Star

Townshend, Pete: just makes me think of the end of Mr. Deeds

T-Rex: Mark Bolan is an icon

Triumph: The no-name brand of Rush

Tubes: like the yogurt

Twisted Sister: they did a christmas album and my mom does NOT hate it

U2: U2 Movers; we move in mysterious ways

Van Halen: RIP Eddie

Van Morrison: honestly, who’s named Van?

Vaughn, Stevie Ray: Steamy Ray Vaughn

Walsh, Joe: The Smoker You Drink The Player You Get

War: Foghat, but even groovier

Whitesnake: the most successful band to be named after a penis

Wright, Gary: the 90s thanks him for writing the song every movie used for the “guy sees cute girl and it’s love at first sight” scene

Yes: To Be Continued

Young, Neil: The best part of CSNY

Zevon, Warren: the album cover of Excitable Boy makes me deeply uncomfortable for reasons I don’t understand

ZZ Top: has been the same three guys since 1969. Lineup unchanged.

3 Doors Down: They feel a little modern to be on a classic rock station, but whatever

38 Special: Why 38?

#I made this instead of doing homework #Classic Rock #Meme

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cherrybombusa · 3 years

Photo

GROUP ONE - CCU LIBRARY CLEAN UP. SUCCESS.

PLAYERS:

THE GOLDEN BOY - Harvey Hargrove. THE HEARTBREAK KID - Casey Russell. THE BABY - Rory Collins. THE FALLEN ANGEL - Alice Alder. THE WANNABE - Virginia Ann Virginia.. THE THESPIAN - Donnie Logan.

PERKS EARNED:

FOLLOW THE LEADER: Since RORY COLLINS friends have so much faith in her, she’s earned a ( +3 ) booster to her leadership skill, available for use one time. SKILLED LIAR: CASEY RUSSELL has proved time and time again that he’s a good liar, but this time he gets a perk for it! The next time something bad happens to Casey, you can lie your way out it... and switch places with someone else, condemning them to Casey’s fate! SOME NANCY DREW SHIT: Since ALICE ALDER has proved her small-time detective skills, she’s earned the power to see ahead! You may learn the outcome of a negative roll before it happens, but you may not share with your teammates... though, you are allowed to talk them in or out of a decision.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS:

-THE GANG WAS FORCED TO SPLIT BETWEEN TWO GROUPS. GROUP ONE: RORY, HARVEY, AND DONNIE. GROUP TWO: ALICE, VIRGINIA, AND CASEY. -THE GANG FOUND A HIDDEN NOTE IN THE WALLS, AND ONE OF THE MASKS USED BY THE FAKE KILLERS. -CASEY CONVINCED HARGROVE HE GOT OUT OF DETENTION ALONE. -NOBODY WAS TAKEN IN THE TUNNELS. -NOBODY WAS ARRESTED.

THE NARRATOR: If Harvard Hargrove II was a better man, he might do something to hide the joker-like grin that was stretched across his expression, but as he looked over his son and his friends - over his trashed library - he couldn’t help but smile. It was seven AM, the sun outside was shining, and these little shits weren't going to see a single second of it. That was enough to set the mood for him.

They were all tired, and he knew it. They were stressed; it was easy to see on their faces. He wasn’t sure just how much they knew about stress, though; he wasn’t sure just how much they knew about struggling, and pretending, and failing to keep it all together.

He couldn’t remember the last time he slept a full night through; couldn’t remember the last time he had a day off. He could hardly even remember a time before the mention of Lux Lewis’s name - her face - didn’t haunt his every waking thought, but hoped this Saturday would be enough to cut the crap from her little gang of Misfits that she left behind… Enough to show them that their actions had consequences, at least, and that grief - however complicated it was - had a time and a place.

Though, Harvard couldn’t exactly imagine that staging elaborate murder scenes just to get the attention of the Cherry PD ever had an appropriate time or place. DEAN HARVARD HARGROVE II: “You all know why you’re here, and I can only hope that you’re disgusted with yourselves.”

THE NARRATOR: Dean Hargrove slinks between the table where they’re all sat, looking each of them in the eye for a moment too long, as if he’s looking right through them. He doesn’t bother to stop in front of Harvey, though. He just walks right past him, like he’s not even there, and instead, he narrows his eyes at Casey in a sick sort of disappointment - like father to son - before turning back toward the rest of the group.

DEAN HARVARD HARGROVE II: “But after your little stunts at my boardwalk, and now my campus, I’m sure you all saw this coming. As far as I’m concerned, you should all be thanking me that you - and for those of you who don’t attend our University, your friends - are even still allowed to attend our school this semester, but I digress. You’re all here to pay your dues, and I’ll see that they’re paid rightly. Today.”

THE NARRATOR: Harvard claps his hands together, and a jump seems to bounce it’s way through the room. Every sound the man makes echoing off of the walls as he walks toward the buckets, and sponges, and bottles of floor cleaner that were cluttered by Glenda Logan’s desk at the front of the library.

DEAN HARVARD HARGROVE II: “And since you all decided to make this little mess, you get to clean it up! I want every drop of pig’s blood scrubbed from this library, I want every book put right back in its place - and if a single one of you decides that’s not your job, then I’ve got Chief Kenner on speed dial to get a police report started, because CCU will be pressing charges on all involved in your little stunt. Got it?”

THE NARRATOR: He’s careful not to meet the eyes of any of the children that are sat before him; careful to keep his back held straight. He’s bluffing - at least in the case of Harvey and Casey - but a little fear never hurt any of the kids he taught. It certainly wouldn’t have hurt Lux that summer.

With that, Harvard turned toward the door; he took a few, careful steps to exit the room… but not before pulling his keyring out of his coat.

DEAN HARVARD HARGROVE II: “I’ll be down the hallway in the arts department, but I’ll be back in a few hours to check on you,”

THE NARRATOR: The dean of students sighs, taking one last look at the group of them before locking the door behind him.

DEAN HARVARD HARGROVE II: “Get to work!”

VIRGINIA ANN: The last thing Virginia wanted to do was clean up the library. In fact, she probably would have detested it if it wouldn't end her academic career. Rubbing her tired eyes, Virginia let out a groan. "Alright, let's get this done. I wanna go back to bed," she said, grabbing one of the sponges.

DONNIE: Donnie pulled back the yellow cleaning gloves all the way to his elbow, letting it go with a loud slap. “But let’s be sure we actually do a good job here.” He added, “Otherwise I’ll be the one dealing with my mom complaining about how the blood stained her J. Crew cardigan during all of dinner.”

MAKE A CHOICE: IT LOOKS LIKE DONNIE AND VIRGINIA WANT TO GET TO WORK... GENUINELY SHOCKED, CONSIDERING. ANYWAY, SHOULD YOU ALL GET TO WORK, OR PROCRASTINATE?

THE NARRATOR: It was bound to happen sooner or later, unless they wanted to be thrown into a cell at Cherry PD, so after a little fussing around with who was doing what - and general complaints about how suck the afternoon was going to turn out to be - the group of them got to work scrubbing the library.

It was hard to say how long they were working before the sound of sighing, and the lingering groan of collective frustration began to create a hum around the room, but any of them would be lying to say it wasn’t ringing in their ears. It was hard enough being in the thick of where their friends had all been tortured, and the manual labor certainly wasn’t helping... Harvey might have been the first to notice it, though, as he took a break from scrubbing an especially large and crusty puddle of blood that had pooled near the murder mystery section. Fitting.

HARVEY: Harvey could tell everyone else was bored out of their minds, and he felt wracked with guilt by the whole thing. His dad had managed to embarrass him before, but this took the cake. All day he'd been stewing on the idea that his friends were pissed at him. Finally, his emotions got the better of him. He threw down the sponge he'd been working with, standing up to address the group. "Fuck it, let's get out of here! Screw my dad and screw this." Sure, I'll get shit for it, but at least I'll have my friends back.

CASEY: There's one thing that's very clear from the moment he arrives. He's going to go out of his mind with boredom over the course of the day. Actually picking up a sponge had been reluctant, but it's enough for him to realise that the rest of them are taking it seriously, so he guesses he will too. Up until the point Harvey speaks and a brow shoots up, curious as Harvey had seemed to be the dean's number one informant earlier in the week. "Oh so now you want to go against daddy?" HARVEY: "If you wanna waste a whole day here just to spite me, be my guest."

RORY: “I might know a way out." She interrupted, only half an idea of what she was going to say. But she wanted to stop this argument before it started. "Well- Noah and I“ Rory hesitated. They hadn’t talked about showing the tunnels to everyone yet, and beside that she really didn’t want to find out what Mr. Hargrove would do if they were caught ditching… But it was too important not to say. The words tumbled out. “We found something during orientation. We snuck back on campus and we found these tunnels that go under the school.” She looked towards the back of the library. “One of the entrances is in here.”

ALICE: …Was she a saint for participating in this lovely event when she didn’t even attend CCU? Up for debate, but probably so. Had anything thus far made it worth her while (because she had so much going for her!)? No! Up until… you know… Rory decided to tell them that there were secret passageways? Furrowing her eyebrows, she replied, “I mean… I’m down for risking a 'Cask of Amontillado' situation if it means getting out.”

THE NARRATOR: The hivemind all turn their heads toward Rory and Alice. It was... an option, for sure.

MAKE A CHOICE: SHOULD THE GANG EXPLORE THE TUNNELS, OR KEEP WORKING?

VIRGINIA: Sleep sounded enticing, but exploring a secret tunnel and getting out even earlier? Sign her up! She didn't want to clean, think about the atrocity her nails would look like after, but the options were pretty limited with Hargrove's threats but... Hargrove wasn't here to stop them now, was he? "I think this is the only time you'll hear me agree with Alice, but yeah, let's get out of here," she said, heading towards the back of the library.

THE NARRATOR: It was an easy enough choice to make, between exploring the supposed ‘tunnels of CCU’ and scraping pig’s blood off of the marble floors of the library, but there was still an air of nervousness that surrounded the Gang as they pushed the secret door open on the first floor.

The sound of their breath echoed down the cavern-like hallway; they felt like their hearts might stop, or like something might pop out of the dark once again to drag them away…Anything was better than cleaning though, right? Right???

MAKE A CHOICE: WHO IS GOING FIRST? THE GANG MUST ELECT A GROUP LEADER. PLEASE CHOOSE BASED ON THESE TRAITS: [ BRAVERY, OR LEADER ]

GROUP LEADER - PLEASE PICK TWO TO FOLLOW BEHIND YOU DIRECTLY. THIS CAN BE BASED ON ANYTHING. DO NOT DISCUSS THIS WITH THE OTHER PLAYERS.

RORY: "We didn't go very far in," she warned them quietly, pulling out her keychain flashlight as she stepped into the darkness of the tunnel. "So I don't know where it goes." Harvey and Donnie follow close behind.

THE NARRATOR: With Rory leading them through the dark tunnels - and her flashlight keychain in hand - it’s hard not to feel a little safer in the absolute hell pit they’re trying to navigate…. but when Rory begins to point out just what she and Noah found, every facade of safety begins to flutter away from the atmosphere.

It’s bad enough that the tunnels exist at all, but at a sharp end that splits into two - a fork in the ‘road’ - there are initials etched into the walls.

A flourished ‘L.D.B.’ along with endless tally marks to match are carved beneath it: as if someone had been counting… something. But what could it mean? And who was L.D.B?

MAKE A CHOICE: SOMEBODY REACT.

HARVEY: Harvey felt a shiver run down his spine at the ominous sighting, but he tried to keep a brave face for all the girls (plus Donnie... and Casey) with them. "I hate to be the 'we should get out of here' guy, but... I'm beginning to think we should get out of here."

THE NARRATOR: Everyone is confused, probably a little frightened, but as the sound of rustling comes from the end of the tunnel - the end they came from - a collective silence falls over the group. Could it be rats? Could somebody be coming? They’re not sure, but either way - as they catch each other’s eyes in the dark of the tunnel - they know one thing: they need to get out of there.

MAKE A CHOICE: GROUP LEADER - PICK A DIRECTION: RIGHT OR LEFT.

THE GROUP LEADER PICKED RIGHT.

THE NARRATOR: Rory breaks off right, taking Harvey and Landon along with her, but Alice, Casey, and Virginia don’t have a moment to think as they go sprinting left without a flashlight to guide them.

They all run hard, chests heaving as they slow to a stop when each group finds a place to hide for a moment - to breathe out - but it’s only a split second before they hear the sound of footsteps coming toward them. They’re going to have to sneak out of here, and fast… but they can’t get themselves caught, or they might not make it back to the library before Dean Hargrove comes to check on them! … If they make it out alive at all.

MAKE A CHOICE: YOU MUST SNEAK PAST WHOEVER IS IN THE TUNNELS WITHOUT ALERTING THEM. THE ONLY WAY TO DO THIS IS TO SOLVE ADMIN EM’S RIDDLES!

THE GANG IS SPLIT INTO TWO... WHICH MEANS BOTH GROUPS MUST SOLVE THEIR OWN RIDDLES. THE GROUP WITHOUT A FLASHLIGHT WILL ONLY HAVE TWO TRIES TO SOLVE THEIR RIDDLE, WHEREAS THE GROUP WITH RORY’S FLASHLIGHT WILL HAVE THREE. IF YOU DON’T SOLVE THEM WITHIN YOUR ALLOTTED NUMBER OF TRIES, YOU WILL COST THE GROUP A TIME PENALTY.

ADMIN EM WILL SPLIT YOU UP INTO SEPARATE ROOMS MOMENTARILY TO SOLVE THE FIRST RIDDLE. GOOD LUCK!

THE NARRATOR: Rory, Harvey, and Landon can feel their hearts pounding in their throats - they might swear they can hear the sound of each other’s panic - but it’s only a moment before the sound of footsteps fades away into the distance. They count to fifty before they switch Rory’s flashlight back on and take off running, once again, down the corridor… but it’s only a moment before Rory trips on something that sends them flying forward. They’re only knocked off of their feet for a moment, but as they shine their flashlight toward it, their heart stops. It’s one of the masks that the psuedo-Candy Girl and her crew were wearing the last time they were at CCU.

Rory takes a moment to stuff this into her pocket, but before long they’ve all taken off running again.

MAKE A CHOICE: GROUP A WAS SUCCESSFUL IN SOLVING THEIR RIDDLE.

THE NARRATOR: Without any sort of light source, Alice, Casey, and Virginia can’t see each other, but they’re still hanging on tight to each other in one way or another as they huddle into the dip on the tunnel. It feels like hours before the sound of footsteps begins to fade away - for a moment they’re not even sure someone was walking through the tunnels, or just occupying one of the classrooms that was sure to be above them - but either way, the three of them begin to sprint through the darkness, with only the feelings of their hands against the tunnel wall to guide them.

They’re lucky they spend so much time feeling around the walls, though… because as they do, Alice manages to clasp their fingers around a rolled sheet of paper that’s been shoved into one of the cracks in the old walls. They only take a moment to pocket it, though, before they continue - there will always be time to unfurl it later when there’s a little more light to go around.

MAKE A CHOICE: GROUP B WAS SUCCESSFUL IN SOLVING THEIR RIDDLE.

THE NARRATOR: All of them feel like they’ve been running for far too long but the time they finally reach a dead end, but as they paw around in the dark - and as Rory illuminates the wall in front of her group - they both manage to find doors.

Rory, Harvey, and Donnie spill out onto the lawn of the quad, while Alice, Virginia, and Casey all file into the hallway near the Dean’s office, but they all somehow know one thing: if they don’t get back to the library, they’re going to be seriously fucked.

....But first they should probably find their friends.

MAKE A CHOICE: YOU HAVE TO FIND YOUR FRIENDS WITHOUT THE DEAN CATCHING EITHER OF YOUR GROUPS. THE ONLY WAY TO GET BACK WITHOUT SUFFERING A TIME PENALTY IS TO SOLVE EM’S RIDDLES.

THE NARRATOR: After navigating the empty building without running into anyone, the Gang find themselves reunited… and they didn’t even lose anyone on the way!

They’re going to need a plan to get back to the library… but they’re going to have to find a way past the locked doors once they get there. They could always get back through the tunnels, though… Yikes. Or maybe someone with enough brain cells could pick the lock! Maybe even break it down!

They were actually going to have to get to the library first, though.

MAKE A CHOICE: ELECT A NEW LEADER BASED ON THESE TRAITS [PERCEPTION, PROBLEM SOLVING.]

THE NARRATOR: With Casey heading the excursion back to the library, they’re sure not to go wrong but just as they all think of Hargrove, the sound of his whistling echoes around the bend of the hallway. They all freeze in place, but it’s only a moment before they’re following along after Casey and scurrying down another hallway.

MAKE A CHOICE: EVERYONE DECIDE IF THEY GO LEFT TOWARD THE BAND ROOM OR RIGHT TOWARD THE ART DEPARTMENT.

WRONG CHOICE. YOU HAVE LED THE GROUP FURTHER AWAY FROM THE LIBRARY. WHILE THIS HAS COST THE GROUP A TIME PENALTY, YOU CAN STILL GET TO THE LIBRARY… BUT THE ONLY WAY IS TO PLAY ADMIN EM’S QUIZ GAME!!!

THE NARRATOR: They have just enough time to round another corner as Harvard Hargrove II approaches, but Casey realizes that the rest of them are never going to make it if someone doesn’t distract Hargrove. Looks like it’s going to have to be him.

MAKE A CHOICE: AS THE GROUP LEADER, YOU MUST STAY BEHIND AND DISTRACT HARGROVE. YOU CAN EITHER TELL HIM ABOUT THE TUNNELS [PERCEPTION], OR YOU CAN LIE ABOUT HOW YOU GOT OUT [PROBLEM SOLVING.] WATCH OUT, THOUGH. YOU NEVER KNOW HOW HE MIGHT REACT TO EITHER OPTION.

CASEY: "Uhhhh hey," he says a little drawled out, somehow this was the part of the day he'd been least expecting. Face to face with his boss, holding back a grimace but knowing it's for the benefit of the group that Hargrove doesn't know about this elaborate story. The look he's giving him says he wants an answer though, and he does his best to give an unbothered shrug about his fake handiwork before smirking, "it's an imperfect world. Hinges break off all the time."

THE NARRATOR: Hargrove is so angry that he looks like he might blow - he’s redder in the face than they’ve ever seen him - but he’s a scary kind of quiet as he listens to their explanation. His top lip threatens to quiver into a snarl every passing moment… but after a long moment he just takes a breath and motions for them to follow him. “Come on. We’ll talk in my office.”

MAKE A CHOICE: SUCCESS!

THE NARRATOR: The rest of the Gang feels wrong in breathing a sigh of relief, but they don’t have much choice as they race through the empty halls of the CCU Arts building, and back to the main entrance of the sprawling library. They make it back with plenty of time, but there’s still one issue… how do they get through the lock?

MAKE A CHOICE: DO YOU PICK THE LOCK [INTELLIGENCE] OR BREAK IT DOWN [STRENGTH?]

ALICE: The door being locked was a downer… but could they say it was unexpected? Not quite. There were a few options — doorhinges break off all the time! -- but… you know, sometimes it was better to err on the safe side first before body-slamming a door. Walking to the front of the gang, she took a bobby pin out (because, for convenience sake, she had bobby pins) and began attempting to pick the lock.

THE NARRATOR: It’s some Nancy Drew type shit, but with a bobby pin in hand - and everyone watching intently over her shoulder - Alice manages to get through the lock and back into the library with the rest of the Gang.

It’s eerily quiet - the buckets are waiting right where they left them - and though they want to discuss what they found, they figured they played it close enough with Dean Hargrove today… and maybe it was time to actually get to work before they got taken up to his office too.

MAKE A CHOICE: YOU HAVE ALL SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED YOUR PLOT EVENT!

#town rp #small town rp #oc rp #bio rp #skeleton rp #secrets rp #college rp #beach town rp #beach rp #90s rp #gossip rp #event plot 003. ccu library clean up.

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Text

Interrogation, Part One

Also known as Jake and The Real Bad Week, Part One. Directly follows Come Back. I’ll alternate these with Chris, so you get an idea of what’s happening to both at about the same time.

CW: Violent beating, electric shock, references to past noncon to another person, institutional brutality, pet whump setting, box boy setting, referenced past domestic abuse

Tagging @finder-of-rings, @burtlederp (@stxck-fxck, it won’t let me tag you!)

“You know,” Jake says, feeling blood thick on his tongue, “usually for something to be considered interrogating, you have to ask a fucking question.” He spits off to the side, trying not to think about the copper taste, the pinkish saliva on the floor.

“Thanks for telling me how to do my job,” The guy says. He’s older, has a blocky face with a rough-cut jawline, looks like the kind of guy you call the muscle in a movie. His hair is a light sandy blond, graying with age. Could be late forties, early fifties. Could be younger and just lived kind of a shitty life.

“Well, you haven’t done it so far, so I figured, maybe you just need the help.” Jake keeps his voice low, almost calm, although anger boils in his veins, alongside worry. This is what his mother always told him would happen, if he kept getting deeper into the movement. If you stick your neck out for somebody, Jake, sooner or later someone else is going to come cut your head off.

Fuck if he cares. Somebody has to stick their necks out for the rescues.

Jake thinks of Chris the night he came, the shivering boy with his hair plastered to his head in the rain, silent and with his hands always in tight fists, held perfectly still, at his side. Wide green eyes, rainwater running down his face like tears. Wrapped in a blanket and wearing nothing but a loose pair of nearly-sheer pants that rain had made stick to his legs. Nat, speaking in hurried half-whispers with Vince, who had picked the boy up from some woman he knew and brought him here in the dead hours of the night.

He doesn’t know why he’s here. He doesn’t know anything. His captor called him Baldur.

Jake thought of taking one look at the delicately wrought, beautiful face and thinking, there’s no fucking way you were eighteen when they found you.

The guy cracks his knuckles. Jake doesn’t flinch.

“I’ve asked you enough questions,” The guy says, kicking out a chair like he’s going to sit, but he doesn’t. “Jakob Collins Stanton-… Collins is a weird middle name.”

“Mother’s maiden name,” Jake shrugs, as best he can. “Mom’s from the South, they do that down there.”

“Hm. My people are Southern, too.”

“Must be where you get all this fuckin’ hospitality.”

The guy’s fist cracks across his cheekbone and Jake groans, but feels a weird sense of victory, anyway. Pissed you off, nyah nyah, sing-songs a bratty little voice somewhere inside his had.

“So,” The guy says, like nothing happened. “Jakob Stanton, Junior at the university, but you’re, what, mid-twenties?”

“Non-traditional.”

“Can’t blame you. College is a fucking money-sink these days. Better off going into a business like mine.”

“What, law enforcement?”

There’s a pause. Then, “Yes,” The guy says. Jake raises his eyebrows. “Anyway. You’ve been working at this shelter for… let’s see here… two years. How’d you meet Natalie Yoder, anyway? She’s a known dangerous entity.”

Nat, wild-haired in her housecoat and pajamas, screaming obscenities at the cops to make sure the sounds were loud enough to cover the sound of Jake getting Chris safely hidden in the false-backed closet. The sound of someone slapping her, and the way it didn’t even slow her down.

The red marks on her face when they’d loaded her into the back of one squad car and Jake into the back of the other.

The relief on her face when no one came out of the house with Chris. The way Jake’s pounding heart had leapt, seeing the officers empty-handed, knowing that it meant Chris had understood, had stayed hidden, silent, safe.

Jake closes his eyes, hoping, praying someone will find him and help him. Chris can’t be on his own, not yet, he doesn’t have any of the skills. They hadn’t had time to work on adult life skillsets, yet, just getting him settled, letting him remember what it was like to live in his own skin again.

Please, please don’t leave the house. Please be safe there. Please, please, please, Chris. I’m coming back for you. They can’t hold me forever.

Please. You deserve someone who keeps their promises, please let me keep my promise to you.

Please let me be able to.

“Yeah, lady who runs a homeless shelter and volunteers at a fucking soup kitchen, she’s a real menace to society,” Jake says dryly.

“You know damn well I’m not talking about her volunteer work. She’s been on our radar for… oh, ten, fifteen years?”

“Whose?”

The guy stills, then. “What?”

Jake stares into the guy’s flat gray eyes. “Whose radar, man? Whose radar is Nat on? Whose radar picked me up?”

The guy looks at him for another long moment, then looks down at the papers littered across the table. There’s one of those mirrors along the wall, where people on the other side can see you but you can’t see them, but Jake doesn’t think anyone is watching. They’ll want plausible deniability, they’ll want no one to have seen him getting the shit kicked out of him by some asshole on a low-level power trip.

“I asked you a question.”

“I don’t give a fuck. You don’t ask the questions here.” The guy slides a slim manila folder out from underneath the other scattered papers. Jake’s eyes scan the front, where someone has handwritten 223499. The number means nothing to him, beyond a simple certainty that there’s a Box Boy or Box Babe in that folder.

Antoni? Leila? Krista? Chris? Kauri? Could be any of them. Could be one of the others that’ve moved on or moved out. Transitioned back into the lives they deserve, not the cages they’d been locked up in, so WRU could convince them they signed up to suffer.

“‘You don’t ask the questions here’,” Jake mocks him, knowing he’s treading a delicate line, but his palms are starting to sweat and his face hurts and he’s fucking had it with this. “What is this, a movie? Jesus, do they feed you lines to learn at the Academy, or…?”

The guy laughs, a dry, mirthless chuckle. He keeps his fingertips on the folder, then straightens his spine and stands back straight, looking at Jake. “Does it matter? It’s true, cliché or not.”

“Look. I get that you’re enjoying yourself, but I’m more than a little bit over this. Just let me leave, you don’t have shit.” Jake’s been here for hours, and he’s fucking exhausted running on the like three and a half hours of sleep he’d gotten before the raid. He’s got class on Tuesday, he needs someone to take notes since apparently he’s going to be in fucking jail.

Well, unless they have nothing, the way he thinks they do.

“How do you know if we have something on you or not?” The guy asks, his voice low, but genuinely curious. The silence stretches out between them.

Something is off about this.

“What are you charging me with?” Jake asks, watching cautiously as the older man shifts back, steps casually around the table. Jake’s eyes follow his movements. His hands are zip-tied behind him, and he keeps feeling the hard edge of the plastic rubbing against his wrists. It’s starting to hurt, and he’s sure that’s the whole idea of leaving him like this.

Well, his wrists can join the parade of everything else that already hurts, it’s a club now, and his throbbing, burgeoning black eye is the current reigning president.

“Whatever we want,” The guy replies, and Jake snorts, then winces as that aggravates whatever happened to his nose on the last punch. It’s not broken, but it’s definitely pissed, and probably his nose is as responsible for the taste of blood in his mouth as biting his tongue is. He can feel something running down the back of his throat, making him clear his throat and cough. Could b blood.

“Well, that tells me something,” Jake says, sitting slowly back in the seat, looking up at the guy. “You’re not a fucking cop, are you?”

It’s a shot in the dark. Just a hunch, something that itches between his shoulder blades. Something about the way the guy moves, the way his uniform doesn’t look quite the same as the other cops, like it’s old-fashioned or something.

Something about the way the cop looks at him, not like a cop looking at a suspect, more like a butcher looking at a cow and figuring how much he’s going to pay to cut it up.

The guy goes still, before he laughs that dry little rumbling cackle again, and it’s all the answer Jake needs and definitely not the answer he wants. Because if he’s not a cop…

“I know what you are.” Jake’s voice goes nearly breathless, something not quite like panic. Deeper than that is the anger.

Finally, I get to see one of you fuckers face to face.

“And what,” The guy asks, rolling his sleeves up, a carefully practiced gesture of intimidation that makes Jake wonder if he does this in the mirror every morning just to be impressed with himself. “… is that?”

“You’re one of them.”

“Them?” The guy’s gray eyes, flat and lifeless, are on his again. Jake smiles, blood smeared wet across his teeth. Got you.

“You’re WRU.” Jake laughs, then coughs a little and spits more blood from his tongue onto the floor. “You’re fucking Facility assholes. Fucking handler. What, you paid the cops off to raid a fucking halfway house for homeless kids? Jesus, does no one actually sign up willingly? Is this how you get ‘em, you fucks with your goddamn bullshit about changing your life circumst-”

The backhand slams into the side of his face and Jake’s head snaps to the side, his body moving with it, and without his hands he can’t stop himself and he crashes to the ground on his side, head bouncing off the floor with a sickening crack, the chair he was sitting in clattering down after him.

But he’s still kind of laughing, through pain and the air that’s been knocked out of his lungs. What are the fucking odds, huh? He’s been training for cops, for law enforcement helping prop up a shitty system because the government makes the laws and we follow the laws, but that’s the thing, sometimes the laws are bullshit and leave hurting, fucked up, terrified people scattered around in their wake.

And sometimes people like Jake can see it happening.

Stick out your neck, Jake, and the cops’ll find out and cut your head off. This isn’t your fight.

Well, it sure as fuck is now, isn’t it?

He can’t stop laughing, now, because they made him practice how to talk to cops, but nobody ever figured he’d have to deal with a goddamn handler, assholes brainwashing kids like cult leaders into losing their memories, their lives, their independence, their personalities, burying it all under a wall of pain and drugs and fear.

Why didn’t he train for handlers?

Jake laughs, and spits more blood on the floor. Then he laughs some more.

“Shut up. Just keep your fucking mouth shut,” The guy growls at him, and Jake’s head pounds alongside all the other pieces of him, the pain that stitches him together. He’s a puzzle made of aches, and that has him laughing, too. What doesn’t make him laugh, right now? What doesn’t?

The kick of a steel-toed boot to his stomach definitely cuts the sound off, at least, and Jake lets out a low grunt of pain, curling in on himself trying to protect the soft parts, but the guy isn’t interested in kicking his organs, at least not now. He rights the chair and drags Jake back up into it. A fist slams into his face, and then it happens again, and again.

Jake’s head hangs low, and he’s barely going to be able to see out of one of his eyes tomorrow, but he’s getting the feeling that’s the least of his problems.

“You’re right,” The guy says, and takes a seat across the table, calm as can be. He slides the manila folder across, spins it around so it’ll be right side up when Jake looks at it. Jake stares down, then slowly raises his eyes back up. The guy’s a bit blurred, now, and the pain is a constant of agony through his body.

Vince has some fake teeth, from what Kauri’s owner did to him when they were kids. Jake wonders idly if Vince will pay for Jake to get some teeth replaced, since this guy’s going to knock some of them out if he keeps this up much longer.

“I’m not with the cops. They’re going to charge you with resisting arrest-”

“Oh, fuck that bullshit,” Jake says, and his lower lip is swelling, the words are slurred more than he likes between that and his bitten tongue. “I didn’t resist shit.”

“They had to throw you into a wall,” The guy says, calmly.

“You did that!”

“Not on the paperwork, I didn’t, and you sure as fuck can’t prove otherwise. Oh no, you kicked up a fuss, as they say. That’s gonna get you a nice hefty fine.”

Jake thinks of Vince and Nat arguing, some nights, when the movie star stops by to be a fucking nuisance. I don’t do the rescuing, Nat, I just write the goddamn checks.

It’d be nice if Jake had that kind of money. Then again, he wouldn’t want to survive what Vince survived to get there - all the child actor grossness, the predatory producers and directors, Owen Grant drugging him and making him lie about what happened to save his career-

“Hey.” Fingers snap under his nose, and Jake flinches back. The guy grins. “That’s better. I like them flinchy. I told you to take a good look and see if this is anyone you recognize. This is who I’m here to recover.”

Jake’s eyes drop to the open folder laid out in front of him.

Chris looks back at him, standing with his shoulders hunched, staring with empty, blank green eyes in the white t-shirt and black shorts Jake has seen in other photos, before, snuck out by the informants who work in WRU. The flash of the black shock collar around his throat makes Jake’s teeth grind together hard enough to add that ache to the list of pains he’s already feeling.

His hair’s the same, he’s maybe a little thinner, but it’s the empty look in his eyes that gets Jake’s blood running cold, like it always does when he sees them like this. All sense of themselves shoved aside, pushed under the surface, drowning in conditioned responses in place of identity.

And he’s just a kid.

“You know who this is, don’t you?” The guy asks, and Jake stares into Chris’s eyes. Blank.

The boy’s hands are motionless fists like stones at the ends of his arms. Still as a statue, not moving at all. No blur of happiness, no taps on the walls, no cold feet pressed against Jake’s legs, no spiderlegs movement into his bed when the night scares him too much to get through alone.

“I’ve never seen this boy in my life,” Jake says, lips numb, and it’s the truth.

Jake only knows Chris.

This photo isn’t of Chris. It’s of an empty slate, ready to be filled with whatever they want to put there, ready to serve, to be an active participant, ready to tilt his head just so to the side and put on a smile that never reaches his eyes and say in a breathy voice, I want this. I want you.

Just like they all do.

Because if they don’t get it just right, they’re tortured until they do.

“You’re lying to me,” The guy says, tapping his finger on the photo again. He moves the paper aside, and there’s another photo underneath. The same boy, a metal collar around his neck hooked to a chain on the wall. There’s an IV in his arm, and a bag just off to the side. His hands are tied behind his back, and there are deep, deep shadows under the boy’s eyes, wide with tears and pain and fear.

“I’m telling you, I’ve never seen this kid.” Jake’s voice is a little less confident, then. But he doesn’t know this one, either, because this is whoever Chris was, before he was a number, before he was a teenage slave, before he was destroyed and rebuilt.

“Oh, really? I’ve got one more photo I think will change your mind.”

Don’t show me what I think you’re going to show me. Don’t do it. Don’t don’t don’t don’t-

The next photo is of Chris, too.

He’s crying in it.

Jake has barely allowed his brain to comprehend what exactly is happening to Chris in the final photo - and he will not allow himself to remember it, not ever, never again - before he’s moving, pushing himself to his feet and then crouching to get his shoulder under the table that isn’t bolted into the floor, but it should be.

“Go to fucking hell, you piece of shit,” Jake growls, and pushes the table over with his shoulder.

It falls nearly on top of the asshole in his chair, knocking him back with a low yelp and scattering photos everywhere, paperwork slipping across the floor like stones skimming the surface of a lake. By the time the guy has started to stand back up, Jake is kicking the table at him, all of it happening in some deep slow motion of misery in his mind.

Chris deserved better. Chris deserved a family. Chris deserved to be safe. They all deserve to be safe. They all deserve something other than this.

The guy gets back to his feet, baring his teeth at Jake in a snarl. They stand, staring at each other, as the guy pulls a slim back baton off his belt, hits a button, and there’s the distinct crackle of electricity.

Jake’s eyes widen, panting still with the exertion that came with pushing the table over, his leg muscles stretched and protesting. “I know what that is,” He says, his tongue a leaden weight in his mouth. His heart drops to his knees.

They hurt us all the fucking time with their sticks, Kauri whispers in his mind. Again and again and again, until we’re not bad any longer.

“Struck a nerve,” The guy says, and wipes at his mouth with the back of one hand. Jake doesn’t take his eyes off the baton. “You do know who that is, don’t you? We’re in the market to get him back where he belongs.”

Jake slowly looks up to meet the guy’s flat gray eyes.

He’s already hurting so fucking much. What’s a little more pain, when there’s someone else’s life on the line?

It’s not your fight, Jake. If you stick your neck out-

I’m making it my fight, Mom. Let them cut my fucking head off.

I was tired of having to stand and watch and not be able to help when I was ten and the bruises were on you, I sure as fuck don’t have to stand and watch when the pain is in him.

I can help now.

Try and stop me.

“I have no clue who that is,” Jake sneers, tightening his hands into fists behind his back. This is going to hurt. This is going to hurt and hurt and hurt, and it’s not going to stop, not until he’s not bad anymore, and Jake has no intention of being good. “But I know you’re the fucking pervert in the photo with him. You got a name so I can get you turned in to the real cops?”

The guy snorts, trying on a sneering smile, but Jake’s move with the table threw him off his smug little rhythm, and the smile isn’t real. “You can call me Mr. Everly. Or Sir.”

My Sir used to lock me outside when it stormed when I was bad

There were hooks in the wall for me in Sir’s bedroom

I had to stay in the basement sometimes so no one would see me

Jake swallows, hard. How far can anger carry you, against pain? He’s about to find out. His mother’s going to be ashamed of him, when she finds out he did this. But sometimes people are ashamed of you when you do the right thing. And right now there’s a boy waiting somewhere for Jake to keep his promise.

“All right, then, Everly. My name is Jake Stanton. I’m a junior in college. I’m twenty-five years old and I work in a homeless shelter for at-risk young adults and Nat Yoder’s been my boss for two years and I’ve never seen that kid before in my fucking life.”

“I don’t believe you.” The guy advances on him, and Jake backs up, right into a wall. It’s just the two of them, in here, and he’s sure that the camera in the corner near the ceiling is turned off. He’s going to walk out of here, but he might not be walking when he does it. He might not be crawling, either.

But he’s not going to give this guy a single piece of information he can use to ruin a life so fragile, so recently built.

Wait for me, Chris.

“I don’t give a shit if you believe me, it’s the truth.”

The guy raises the baton, brings it down, and Jake collapses to the ground, screaming at the pain that runs through every muscle as they lock up, nerves sparking with electricity. It comes down again, and again, and again, and everything is pain, and Jake’s eyes close tight and he doesn’t try to be strong, to hold out. He screams, and cries, and he holds green eyes in his mind, he holds backflips and yoga, and swinging from the high bars to the low bars, landing on his feet.

A bright and sunny smile as Chris lands on his feet, arms in the air, and immediately asks if Jake will watch him do it again.

Don’t leave, don’t run, don’t go somewhere you’re not safe, we’re coming back for you.

The baton turns into fists, into the ends of those steel-toed boots, into bruises that blossom and the sounds Jake is making are barely human as he curls up on the ground. When he’s hauled up into the chair again, the guy asks him more questions.

Jake stares at him, body singing with pain, and says nothing at all.

“You’re going to be annoying,” The guy says. “I can tell.”

Jake grins at him, bitterly, and spits a little more blood on the floor.

“I sure fuckin’ hope so. I want my goddamn phone call.”

“Thought you said I wasn’t a cop.”

“You’re not. But I want my phone call, anyway.” Jake stares at him, bleary and blurry thanks to the blood running into his eyes. “And I know you want to listen to it.”

The guy pauses, is quiet for a second. Jake doesn’t breathe.

“Fine.”

I’m coming back for you, Chris, I promise, but first I’m going to send someone who can help. If she can find you.

Please, please be waiting where she can find you.

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roxilalonde · 5 years

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ok now things that were excellent about the hunger games:

-katniss’ character arc

-i mean it like katniss is a) a traumatized woman whose b) pain is never glossed over or overlooked, whose grief and coping mechanisms are put at the front and center of the narrative, and whose trauma is absolutely critical part of any coherent reading of the story

-her emotions are treated as legitimate and valid regardless of what causes them. she is allowed to be irrational; she is allowed to be furious. she is allowed to be complicated and illogical and angry at her circumstances in a way that was (and continues to be) revolutionary for a female character in YA fiction

-her only parent is a single mother whose mental illness and grief in the aftermath of her husband’s death has prevented her from taking care of her children, and the consequences of this in terms of how it affects her relationships with her children play out in a realistic and nuanced way

-katniss’ friendship with gale is just that. a friendship. no matter what happens in the later books in the hunger games she and gale are just best buds who shoot stuff in the woods and forage together. their friendship has no strings attached and it was a breath of fresh air while it lasted

-her relationship with peeta is grounded in an interesting conversation about what it means for people in poverty to show solidarity with each other, and what that solidarity can look like, and how even minute acts of kindness can have incredible impacts to those on the receiving end of them. this isn’t even a huge part of the books it’s just nice to see

-peeta never does creepy shit or tries to coerce her or acts entitled to katniss’ love. he’s nice to her. he like, idk, genuinely acts like he likes her? which is wildly rare for a lot of Y/A love interests?? and he’s in love with her but that’s all, he only uses it as a Games strategy on his end, he doesn’t act like a complete ass about it and the fact that i’m as grateful for this narrative decision as i am is pretty depressing but i am nevertheless

-collins pulls zero punches in depicting the horrors and aftermath of the games themselves. she does not fuck about glorifying or romanticizing the ordeal. she makes all but explicit that the hunger games is a scathing critique of television/reality shows/movies and how they’re tied into capitalist structures, to the point where she all but spells out on the page “THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY’S MANIPULATION AND ABUSE OF CHILDREN IS IMMORAL AND THE FACT THAT WE HAVE ALL BECOME SO NUMB TO IT IS A VERY VERY BAD THING”

-katniss’ hyper-awareness of the cameras and where they are at any given point and in any given scene is a very nice use of detail. like she’s constantly noticing lenses, screens, mirrors, basically anything that could be used as a surveillance device, and it really sets a nice atmosphere of paranoia and supervision that both lets us into her headspace and paints a broader picture of the capitol in general

-the capitol in general is also really well done; the sheer lavishness and luxury is depicted in gorgeous detail, and you can almost feel yourself being pulled into the scene -- except collins always holds you back from getting totally absorbed in the facade of the Games, keeping you skillfully positioned at a far enough distance that you can see the horror underneath

-just all the little details about the Games that she included. tesserae. volunteering. the “career tributes.” the mentor system. the stylists. the initial chariot ride. the interviews. the balls. the training. the evaluations. the sponsors. it really does make the Games feel like a real event that a lot of people put a lot of thought into the ritual and ceremony of, horrific content aside.

-and that’s also the point! that you can get so wrapped up in the politicking and emotional dramas surrounding the Games that you forget what they are: an indefinite round of blood sport played out to the death with twenty-four unwilling child participants

-how expertly the gamemakers turn the kids against each other, playing on their fears and insecurities to produce more convincing conflict and rivalries

-how you almost forget that they’re children, except collins won’t let you forget. she keeps reminding you. in death scenes especially there is unique attention paid to noticing how small tributes are, how they look immature, how they’re inexperienced or dumb or make bad decisions, and it all points you again and again to the recurring realization that they’re children. this. is happening. to children.

-the way that the capitol distances itself from the Games by refusing to really confront the reality of death, which read a certain way is a very cutting critique of how western media uses the framing of images and metaphor to distance itself from the tragedies it often uses for content

-basically the hunger games is a nuanced and magnificent text

-literally these books were so fucking good

#fuck the love story i read this and felt like i was 4 layers deep in an expanding brain meme #the hunger games

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siriusjohnpotter · 3 years

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ok I just NEED to express my disgust and disappointment with the spn ending. it's literally the worst thing they could have ever done when there was so much potential after the cas confession scene.

im so mad at the writers who actually thought it would be a good idea to make dean die bc of being ACCIDENTALLY impaled by a literal NAIL on a wall after everything he's been through? that's so fucking insulting to his character and I hate how he just died there not even fighting to stay alive cause he thought that was what was going to happen all along. and then sam had to burn his body all alone, literally no one came to his funeral? if Jack was god then he would obviously know everything that was happening and you can't tell me he wouldn't have brought dean back, or at least paid his respects, but they barely even mention him and cas.

and then what even happened to sam? they showed him going to Austin to work another case but then all of a sudden they we see him with a son named dean and an unknown wife, like what the fuck happened to Eileen? when she disappeared in the 18th episode he was so upset and you expect us to believe he forgot about her? they also did a horrible job of making him look old, he was the same but with glasses and gray hair. his death scene was done really badly too.

and in heaven dean sees bobby who tells him Jack changed the way heaven worked with the help of cas dean didn't even acknowledge that? like how did cas get out of the empty and why did dean not care enough to know? they should have at least had cas visit him in heaven but all they did was show us dean driving his car the whole time until he sees sam and they're both finally content I guess.

this doesn't even feel like a supernatural episode tbh the 19th episode would have made a much better ending. im so mad at the writers and I feel so sad for Jensen cause he didn't like the ending from the beginning but they didn't care, and I'm so so sorry to misha Collins, he deserved SO MUCH better, the show wouldn't be half of what it was without him, and he wasn't even in it for a second.

all I can say is if id known this was how it was gonna end i never would have watched it. I'd even prefer if deancas was 100% platonic to this shit. basically everything they said about family being more than blood was a lie. disappointment is the only thing I feel rn

#spn spoilers #supernatural #spn season 15 #spn finale #if you read this whole thing thanks #ive never in my life writtten anything even half this long online so im kinda nervous posting this

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craniumhurricane · 5 years

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sometimes you have to break a few

Based on a Tumblr post I saw like forever ago and thought I took a screenshot of but can’t find:

I was in Publix and saw this woman buying a shit ton of eggs in front of me, she turned and looked at me and said “I don’t actually like eggs, my daughter’s boyfriend cheated on her and I’m going to egg his car.”

Because Clarke would be that mom.

On AO3!

It's later in the night than Bellamy would usually be doing his grocery shopping but it's the only time he was able to carve out during his busy week. The Ark High Spring Fling dance was tomorrow and somehow he was roped into signing up to help on the party committee. (Scratch that, he knows how, it's because he can't say no to Miss. Vie.)

There's only two registers open and since one is reserved for customers with 10 items or less, Bellamy opts for the other. He's zoning out and going over his mental checklist for the next day when the golden hair of the woman in front of him comes into focus. He watches her as she attempts to juggle about a dozen cartons of eggs from her hands to the conveyor belt. There's something familiar about her hair…

And then he hears her cursing and mumbling under her breath and all at once it clicks.

“Clarke?”

She startles and Bellamy is honestly shocked she doesn’t drop any of her eggs. She turns around, eyes widening as she takes him in, “Bellamy?”

He smiles, can't help it, “Holy shit, it is you. What's it been? Six years?”

She's smiling too, “Give or take but who's counting.”

He hasn't been counting, not really, but Bellamy knows he hasn't seen Clarke Griffin since she and his little sister graduated high school. She went off to some prestigious college and Bellamy stayed in Arkadia. He tried to keep in contact with her but she must have gotten a new number and then his Facebook was hacked and he didn't see a reason to set up a new one. Basically, it just seemed like they naturally drifted apart.

Except here she is. Standing in front of him in line at his supermarket at 9:30 at night purchasing approximately 144 eggs.

He feels like he's been staring too long, all his thoughts and questions jumbling together, so he asks the first thing his brain sends to his mouth...

“Come here often?” and cringes immediately but Clarke snorts out a laugh so maybe it didn't sound as bad as he thinks it did.

“Wow, that was awful,” she answers for him, but she's smirking. “Is that your way of asking if I've moved back to town?”

“Yeah, that's the appropriate way to word that question.”

She chuckles, “I've been back almost 2 years now. I got a job over at the physical therapy and rehab facility on Second.”

He tries not to let it show but he's surprised she's been back that long and he didn't know about it. Clarke was the same age as his sister but the two of them were always closer. He always thought that if she ever did come back that she would reach out. She must see something on his face though because she continues.

“I didn't know you were still in town, though!” she says in a rush. “I follow Octavia on Instagram and she seems to be as far from Arkadia as she can get. I assumed you'd be with her."

He shrugs, “Arkadia was always more my home than it was her’s.”

She ducks her head and tucks some hair behind her ear, "Yeah that seems right."

The cashier is done ringing up the eggs and calls for Clarke's attention; the poor woman only looks mildly alarmed by the purchase. Now, Bellamy’s seen enough movies to know that the cool thing to do in this situation would be to tell the cashier to ring up everything together and he’d pay for all of it… But that's a lot of fucking eggs.

Clarke pays and then to his surprise she waits for him at the end of the checkout line.

“I would ask if you were baking enough cakes to feed an army,” he says on the way out to the parking lot, “but for the Senior Year bake sale you definitely brought store bought brownies.”

She purses her lips at him for a second before exhaling in a huff, “No, these aren’t for baking. My daughter’s boyfriend cheated on her and I’m going to egg his car.”

The first thing he registers from that sentence is that she has a daughter. It’s only been six years so if she had a kid right after she left for college then at most they’d be in Elementary School. Egging a 5 year old’s car seems a bit excessive. And then the rest of the sentence hits him and he laughs.

“Finn Collins?”

"Old habits?” she smirks. “Clearly I haven't matured with age… and to be fair, that time it was Raven's idea."

He chuckles and shakes his head. "So you got a kid?"

He can see Clarke's face visibly light up at the question, despite the fact that it’s growing dark out.

“Madi, yeah," she says, "I fostered her for about a year and it was rough at first but we got through it and I think we both realized just how much we needed each other. I started the adoption process after that and then moved back here once it was finalized.” She pauses for a breath, thinks about it, and then adds, “She goes to Ark High actually."

He stops walking which makes her stop too.

“Wait, Madi Griffin?” he asks and when all she does is tilt her head in confusion he clarifies, “I teach freshman at Ark High.”

She gapes at him. “You’re Mr. Blake!? Madi talks about you all the time.”

“She’s never had a class with me," he says, dubious.

“Yeah well, you’ve always been able to make an impression.”

And suddenly it feels like old times. Clarke saying something nice about him and him not quite knowing how to accept it. She used to do it often, and adamantly, and he never felt like he deserved the praise but it never stopped her from giving it. Just like before, he feels warmth spread through his chest.

“So,” she shrugs, “you want to come with me? For old time’s sake?”

He doesn’t normally believe in signs but it feels like the universe is definitely trying to tell him something. He wants to keep hanging out, wants to catch up on the last 6 years and see if any of those lingering feelings are still there. He considers her offer for probably a bit longer than he should before reasoning finally sets in.

“Tempting but unfortunately it’s a school night,” he says, mostly as a joke but it's true. “Besides, I don’t think it would look good if a teacher gets caught egging one of his student’s cars.”

“You don’t even know if he’s one of your students.”

“And if I’m not an accomplice to vandalism then I’ll never have to know.”

“Wow, look at Bellamy Blake all grown up.”

“Well, one of us had to,” he teases and then before he can chicken out, “Let me give you my number though. In case you need bail money.”

“Wow. Smooth,” she smirks but she starts juggling her bags so she can take his phone.

“The smoothest,” he says when she hands it back. He sends her a quick text so she has his number and after that there's nothing left to do but leave.

“I'd give you a hug but,” she lifts her hands, laden with bags. And then he suddenly feels the weight of his own bags digging into his wrists.

“Next time,” he promises with a smile. “It was good to see you, Clarke.”

“You too. Bye, Bellamy.”

He almost makes it all the way to his car before he has to turn around and take one more look at her. It might be wishful thinking, but he thinks she's just turned back around from doing the same.

He contemplated texting Clarke all night but figured that would be creepy and make him seem eager, which he wasn’t. She texted him a thumbs up emoji while he was putting away his groceries, which he assumed meant she made it home alright. He hadn’t known how to respond to it last night any more then he knew how to respond to it the next morning.

So he just ignores it, or at least tries to. He has work and then the dance, so in theory plenty to keep him occupied.

Apparently, he had no reason to worry about social norms and the proper etiquette for responding to an emoji because Clarke shows up to the Spring Fling dance that night. She doesn't notice him so he avoids her and asks Maya about it instead, like an adult. Apparently she signed up to chaperone. He really should have paid more attention to this thing.

He’s about to go over and talk to her but Maya stops him and requests his help rehanging some decorations that fell down. After that she sends him off to his position at the refreshments table for the night and he completely loses sight of Clarke. He wants to go look for her but that would require abandoning his post and he doesn't trust these kids not to spike the punch bowl.

He’s not sure how much time has passed since time seems to speed up and yet stand still at these things. He also gets absorbed in his job and even chats with a few of his students as they stop by. He’s just confiscated a flask from Ethan Hardy when there’s a commotion over to his left.

“I know it was you!”

When Bellamy turns, he finally finds Clarke again. Unfortunately, it looks like she’s pissed off Nia Winters.

Nia Winters, or Queen Nia as many teachers call her behind her back due to the fact that she constantly gives this “I’m better than you and I have the attitude and money to prove it” vibe, is a long time parent of Ark High and tries to get her hands in every committee. Her eldest already graduated years ago, but now she has two more that go to the school. Bellamy will honestly be happy when they’re done with her and her overbearing “my child can do no wrong” parenting.

“I know it was you that threw eggs at my son's car!” she’s yelling at Clarke now and it doesn’t take long for Bellamy to connect the dots.

It must have been Nia’s son that cheated on Madi. Now that he thinks about it, he vaguely remembers hearing about them dating.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Clarke replies, expression completely cool and unreadable.

“The hell you don't!” Nia gets right up in Clarke’s face. They’re starting to draw a little bit of attention so Bellamy slowly makes his way over, ushering kids to get back to the party as he goes.

“I wasn't near your son's car last night,” Clarke says, complete with a straight face that even Bellamy would believe if he didn’t know otherwise. And then she looks Nia right in the eyes and adds, “Though whoever did do it was probably justified.”

Nia rears back like she’s been slapped before settling into a position that Bellamy can only describe as a predator ready to pounce. “How dare-”

“Sorry to interrupt,” he says as he closes the distance with two long strides. There’s still a few students looking but at least they’re trying to be discreet about it. “Can I help with anything?”

Nia whirls around to look at him and thrusts a finger out a Clarke, manicured nail just inches from her chest. “I want this woman to admit what she's done and be removed from the premises so I can press charges.”

Clarke looks like she's about to say something but Bellamy cuts her off. “I'm sorry, but I'm afraid she's telling the truth.”

Both women turn to look at him, each with their own look of bewilderment and shock.

Nia looks from Bellamy to Clarke and back. “And how would you know that?” she asks defensively.

Clarke’s looking at him with that quizzical head tilt again. He meets her eyes for a second, hoping they’re still able to communicate without speaking and then turns his attention back to the other woman. “Because she was on a date with me last night.”

Nia’s jaw drops and out of the corner of his eye he can tell Clarke is biting the inside of her cheek to try and suppress a grin.

“W-Well,” the woman stutters.

“Maybe check with one of his other girlfriends,” Clarke says as she steps forward and puts her hand on Bellamy's arm. “From what I understand, it's a pretty extensive list. You might want to get started.”

And with that Clarke leads him back over to the drinks table, leaving Nia absolutely fuming. He’s afraid she’s going to try and follow them but she just stands there for a few minutes before marching towards the doors of the gym.

When they reach the table Clarke doesn’t remove her hand from his arm. “Thanks for the save,” she says, looking at the dancefloor, purposefully not meeting his eyes.

“Anytime,” he half shrugs. “But if you had told me that Madi was dating Queen Nia’s son last night then I probably would have helped you out.”

She finally turns and smiles up at him, “You got to help me out tonight though.”

There’s a pause again as they lull into a slightly awkward silence. Or maybe he just thinks it’s awkward. He’s afraid if he doesn’t fill it then she’s going to leave and then he’s right back where he started with a stupid thumbs up emoji.

“You know,” he starts to say and she looks back up at him. “Maybe we should grab dinner sometime. To make this whole dating thing more believable.”

“Wow, smooth,” she teases, but the effect is lost by how bright her smile is.

“We already established last night that I was smooth.”

She laughs and moves her arm to lace it properly through his. “Dinner sounds great.”

#no one cares ashleigh #bellarke fanfiction #my fanfiction #bffnet #i'm going to post this and run away because omg #this actually hits two of my bellarke bingo squares but idk if i want to use it #i've been affectionately referring to this as my 'distraction fic'#cause i was working on this instead of editing cops and robbers #hey i don't like my choices either

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lawonderlandwriter · 5 years

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Just got back from watching Last Christmas!! My full review!

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW

Yesterday, while bored at work, I got to reading through Last Christmas reviews and I was surprised to see that a majority of major publications reporting on it were panning it and even more surprised to see that those who liked the film were “meh” on Emilia’s performance. So if you’re like me and are worried because of what the critics are saying, here’s my take.

1) Last Christmas never pretends to be anything other than exactly what it is. Though I knew the “twist” going into the movie (cuz it’s pretty obvious and I had read other reviews), the film never tries to trick its audience in any way or try to hide what the major “twist” will be at the end. It’s actually pretty in your face from the get go and as I’ve been averse to twist endings lately (thanks GOT), I appreciated this.

2) I can see why some people didn’t like it...for about the first third of the movie. Going in, obviously I had ridiculously high expectations because, duh, my girl Emilia Clarke. And that was dumb of me. I went in wanting to LOVE the movie but for the first act, I ended up feeling “meh” about it.

3) BUT, about a third of the way through, the movie really picks up and hits you HARD. At least it did me. Maybe it’s because I’m a late twenty something with a job I never intended on having, still trying to make a dream come true, looking for love, blah blah blah, but I just felt so much while watching this movie. I should have brought tissues, seriously, because for the rest of the film I was holding back tears the entire time.

It’s not that the love aspect of the movie is particularly intense. I actually didn't buy into the love story that much, if I’m being honest. But it was Emilia’s character Kate’s life ups and downs and emotional arc and change that struck me. Of course, it’s a Christmas movie. It was always going to have some upbeat message, reason-for-the-season kinda deal. You sign up for that going into any Christmas movie.

But I suppose I liked Last Christmas’s so much because it just seemed so...relevant. Maybe not relevant in the world, but on a personal level. Seriously, any lost and confused millennial/twenty-something looking for a film to make you feel motivated to get your life together, go see this.

4) The movie had other worldly “messages” too, but they didn’t really stick. Not saying that I thought the movie had a “liberal agenda” or anything because nothing felt forced or shoved down your throat. It’s just that some things seemed a bit superfluous or never really paid off or felt unrelated to the rest of the film.

The Brexit thing probably was the most obvious of these “superfluous” plots, but I guess I can see what Emma Thompson (screenwriter) intended with it. Kate’s character kind of has undertones of an identity crisis tied up with her heritage (insisting she be called “Kate” when her name is actually “Katarina”) but it just didn’t seem relevant to her changes toward becoming a better person.

Especially since the movie doesn’t go into much in detail in regards to her parents and her mother specifically. It’s mentioned her mother has depression and that her father avoids being home to avoid her but it’s never stated why and we’re never shown how that conflict is resolved. So because there was no pay-off, I could have done without it. But it in no way seemed distracting or took away from the film in any way.

5) Emilia’s performance was EVERYTHING. I have no idea what the people saying she wasn’t great are smoking. One review I read said something about all the other characters in the film stealing the show and Emilia just being kinda there but I felt the total opposite. Emilia IS the movie. Every emotional beat, every tear-jerking moment is because of Emilia’s amazing performance. Everyone else, including, sadly, Henry Golding, just kind of gravitate around Emilia. Some of the other characters have silly one-liners but none of them are “show stealingly” good.

Some critics are talking about Emilia’s character not being “likable” enough and I call bullshit. Yes, she’s abrasive in the beginning of the movie. She’s supposed to be. That’s the whole fucking point. But she’s a character you do end up caring about, caring about a lot, and end up fully rooting for throughout the film. The thing I loved about Emilia’s character and Emilia’s performance, is that Kate is just so relatable.

6) The romantic element of the film was a little odd and honestly, didn’t feel very important. Anyone saying Emilia has more chemistry with Henry Golding than Kit Harington is just saying that to spite Jonerys fans cuz it ain’t true. But I think the lack of chemistry was probably due to the nature of their character’s relationship rather than genuine lack of chemistry between the actors. Tom (Henry Golding’s character) is dead. It’s not explained what he is (ghost, vision, hallucination), but he’s dead. He knows he’s dead. He knows they can’t have a romantic relationship. He’s. Dead.

7) But the lacking “romance” in the film, again, doesn’t take away from the movie in any way. It’s not about the romance. It’s about Kate’s character and her making changes in her life for the better. For this reason, I can see why people are comparing this to “It’s a Wonderful Life” except, rather than be shown an alternate timeline of her life, Kate is just living a shit life, but one that she fully is capable of turning around all on her own - just with a little friendly nudging from Tom.

Overall, I really really enjoyed Last Christmas, weirdly way more than I was expecting to but mostly because I wasn’t expecting the film that was delivered. Had this been the straight romcom it was advertised as, I actually might not have enjoyed it as much as I did.

It you’re looking for that Christmas romcom with ooey-gooey lovey-dovey feels, this may not be the film for you. You may be better off re-watching the Collin Firth storyline from Love Actually, or your generic Hallmark movies.

But, if you are in the mood for something Christmassy and something pick-me-up/feel-good a la “It’s a Wonderful Life”, definitely go see Last Christmas.

Or just go see it anyway cuz duh it’s Emilia Clarke!

#emilia clarke #last christmas movie #last christmas spoilers #i liked it!#if you don't want spoilers and just need someone to tell you to go see it...#Go see it!#you have my permission

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btsybrkr · 4 years

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Please Come Dine With Me

In today’s world of Netflix originals, glossy reality series and big budget drama, it’s easy to forget about TV’s old reliables. You know, the programmes with nothing to say, but so much to give. They’re the television equivalent of an ex that you can’t help but miss, despite having brought absolutely nothing to each other’s lives. The absolute king of this brand of TV can only be Come Dine With Me, the dinner party contest that began broadcasting in 1892 and has been playing simultaneously, on all 26 branches of Channel 4, at every hour of every day ever since. Seriously, flick through the channels, I can almost guarantee it’s on right now.

Come Dine With Me, now in its 37th series (I’m actually not making that bit up), must unironically be one of the best things to ever air in this country. During a casual viewing, it seems that nothing much happens, but a quick Google search unearths an absolute goldmine of unforgettable moments. Some have already been cemented into pop culture history, destined to be repeated on ‘100 Greatest...’ clip shows until the sun swallows the Earth whole - like the man who decided to sample a sauce he was making by nonchalantly shoving the whole whisk into his mouth, or sore loser Peter Marsh’s ‘you won, Jane’ speech, which is, in my opinion, a hundred times more brutal than anything Ricky Gervais could or would ever come out with whilst presenting an awards ceremony. Others are unfortunately never spoken about, but remain a vivid memory in the consciousness of the lucky viewers who caught them, such as the moment a particularly eccentric contestant, known only as DJ Dom, drafted in indie musician Badly Drawn Boy to help him cook for his ‘Madchester’ themed dinner party, before telling the viewers “All done, just got to go and change me kecks!” and coming back downstairs in the exact same outfit, right down to the bucket hat. Or the iconic Preston week from series 7, in which we were introduced to so-posh-it-hurts Valerie Holliday, whose pronunciation of the word ‘pheasant’ (or fezzaaaunt, as she might say) is superglued to the insides of my brain, where it will stay for the rest of my days. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m sure we’ve all, at some point, had the ‘who would be invited to your dream dinner party?’ conversation with our friends or family, but what we should really be asking each other is “who would be on your dream episode of Come Dine With Me?”. If you think about it, they’re two very different questions, with very different answers. Of course, I’d love the chance to sit and speak with Tom Hanks, Mac Demarco and Phoebe Waller-Bridge over a glass of wine and a really good burger, but do I think it would make entertaining TV? Well, yeah, probably. But not on Come Dine With Me. That’s a horse of a very different colour.

Anyway, here’s what my dream episode of Come Dine With Me might look like. Narrated in your brain by Dave Lamb, probably.

Today, we’re in Blackpool, where our first contestant, 23-year-old chronic timewaster Betsy (that’s me!), is gearing up to host the opening night of the week, and we’re sure it’s going to be an absolute belter. Let’s see what her fellow dinner party guests make of the menu.

“A cheeseboard? As a starter? What’s that about?”, asks living soundbite and reality TV icon, Gemma Collins. She’s unimpressed with the menu, largely on the basis that it pales in comparison to the sort of luxury she’s used to, such as the gourmet camel penis she could have been tucking into on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! In 2014, had she not packed it in after three days. Actually, I think the celebrity version of Come Dine With Me might be the only reality programme that Gemma Collins is yet to appear in. Maybe we should be writing to the powers-that-be at Channel 4 and getting them to sort that out, since I’ll surely be making a strong case for her appearance here. Anyway, who’s next?

Our third contestant is equally disappointed with the offerings. “I don’t fuck with stilton”, states the self-proclaimed second coming of Jesus, Kanye West. Yes, he’s an odd choice for a daytime cookery/popularity contest, especially since I’m almost 100% sure he doesn’t cook for himself under any circumstances, and is probably only popular among people who’ve never had to try and sit through an actual conversation with him, but who cares? Kanye does what Kanye wants. And if Kanye wants to appear on Come Dine With Me, then that’s his business, and he’ll shit in the Yeezys of anybody who disagrees. Or pay someone else to do it for him, obviously. Anyway, onto contestant number four, who can surely only be disappointing after that… can’t they?

Of course not!! Contestant number four is TV’s shouty queen-of-clean Kim Woodburn, who is really excited to get her teeth into some red hot beef. Not the food kind, either. The kind of beef she dished out to Philip Schofield, while he was asking her questions about the beef she dished out in her fondly-remembered ‘chicken-livered bunch’ rant from Celebrity Big Brother. She’ll be glad to know I’m not serving any chicken livers at my dinner party, I’m sure. Not that she’ll be particularly enamoured with my cooking skills overall.

“It all looks terribly common, darling”, she says, as she holds the menu in one Marigold-wearing hand, and a glass of an expensive gin in the other. Suit yourself, then, Kim.

Contestant number five hasn’t bothered to read the menu yet, but that’s because he’s been busy begging the Channel 4 producers on set for another series of Deal Or No Deal now that his hefty I’m A Celebrity paycheck is all but gone. Yes, it’s Noel Edmonds, TV’s favourite bearded arsehole. After Alan Sugar, of course, but I’ve already written a bit about him on here, so there’d be no point in putting him in this one as well. You know, someone I knew a few years back once told me that Noel Edmonds did a guest lecture at his university, in which he offered some lucky students the chance to spend their summer doing a couple of months unpaid work experience on his radio show. Imagine that! Spending day-in-day-out with Noel Edmonds, without even a penny in compensation. I know they say ‘life’s not fair’, but that really would be pushing it.

Anyway, that’s everyone, and as I anxiously pour boiling water into five chicken and mushroom Pot Noodles, my all-star dinner guests begin to arrive. First at the doorstep is Kim, who I greet with open arms.

“Wonderful to meet you, luvvie”, she says. The worried glance she gives the camera afterwards tells me otherwise. Perhaps she’s unimpressed by my unshiny door handle. That’s not a euphemism.

Gemma and Noel arrive soon afterwards, both carrying bottles of champagne that I couldn’t possibly ever afford myself. They’re not to share, of course, they were bought in anticipation that the wine I’m providing wouldn’t be up to standard, which it is, because I’m serving all my courses with a glass of Summer Berries Echo Falls. It’s £5.99 a bottle and gets you absolutely Bankered.

We mingle in the living room, eagerly anticipating the arrival of my final guest. Just as Gemma, Kim and Noel begin bonding over the trials of being paid many thousands of pounds to sit around and simply exist for the viewing pleasures of mere mortals like myself, Kanye West teleports himself into the room, in a futuristic flash of lightning and to the tune of his 2010 hit Power, blowing a massive hole into the entire left side of my house in the process. It’s true what he says, you know - the man really is a genius.

We take our seats at the dinner table, as soon as the rest of my guests are done with the obligatory search through my knicker drawer (cue a comeback for Kim’s famous How Clean Is Your House? catchphrase, “Oh, you dirty devil!”) that happens on every edition of Come Dine With Me. You know, despite everything else on the programme, that’s the one bit of it that I’ve never really understood. Every single one of the show’s 1,647 episodes includes a bizarre sequence in which the contestants go running around the host’s home, rifling through their personal belongings and mocking them for the cameras. I’m sure the point of it is supposed to be to give the guests a chance to ‘get to know’ the host, but then I’d have thought that spending five nights eating and chatting with them would be a fairly effective way of doing that. Besides, can you imagine catching your guests doing that in real life? I wouldn’t be sitting them down for a meal and rating them for a chance to win £1,000, I’d be throwing them out, maybe even calling the police, depending on what exactly they were doing with the belongings in question. Not that I have time to think about that right now, I’ve got a cheeseboard to prepare!

First topic of conversation is, of course, TV, and as we tuck into our Ritz biscuits and Tesco Value mature cheddar, Noel gives us his opinion.

“My main issue with television these days is that I’m just not on it enough.” A valid viewpoint. We take a moment to collectively long for the days of Noel’s HQ, a drunken nightmare that was somehow harnessed and broadcast to the masses by Sky1, way back in 2008. Noel’s HQ has been mostly lost to time, except for the presence of a video on YouTube entitled ‘Noel Edmonds speaks with passion’, which is well worth a watch if, like me, you enjoy four minute long videos of TV presenters struggling to stifle their own belief that they might just be The Best Person Ever. There’s a great bit in it where he angrily declares to his delighted audience, “I don’t get paid a penny for doing this show”. Noel, I think I speak for everyone when I say thank you for your sacrifice.

Speaking of The Best Person Ever, Kanye is noticeably quiet. But then, Kanye isn’t here to share his views. Kanye isn’t particularly here to do anything. Kanye is simply here to observe - to greet his subjects, and work out what makes them tick. Kanye can sense our excitement to be sat in his presence, and Kanye enjoys this. It feeds Kanye. Far more than my meager dinner offerings ever could.

I press Gemma for her own opinions on TV, as someone who is literally always on it. Gemma Collins gets where Domestos can’t. It may sound like I’m being flippant, but in all honesty, I love Gemma Collins. I’m not even sure why, I just know I do. She’s famous for the sake of being famous, and she’s bloody good at it. She’s also quite possibly the most quotable public figure since Shakespeare himself. Maybe even more than Shakespeare. Think about it. What inspires you more? “To be or not to be?”, like anyone knows what that actually means, or “Nah, fuck this, I’m out of here. Get that fire exit door. Am off.”, a poetic sentiment, which conveys an emotion we’ve surely all felt at some point in our lives? I know who gets my vote.

Kim misunderstands the question “what do you think of television today?” as “how clean do you think my television is?”, and responds by pulling out a five pack of dusters and a can of Mr Sheen, and getting to work on the flatscreen in the corner of my living room. Oh well, at least all that cleaning will make her hungry in time for the main course. Speaking of which, maybe it’s time I got on with that.

Despite their disappointment with the starters, the main course - Super Noodle sandwiches, with a generous side-helping of curly fries - appears to delight all my guests, except Kim, who mutters under her breath that it all seems very tacky. I won’t let it get me down. It’s my heartfelt belief that anything can be a sandwich filling if you’re brave enough, and my other three guests agree with me. Kanye lets out a satisfied ‘hm’. Excellent.

We sit down to dessert, and another glass of Echo Falls. The wine is going down surprisingly well, especially with Kim, who has started subtly rolling her eyes at the conversation between myself and Gemma Collins, who are bonding over how much we love Gemma Collins. Kim purses her lips. Her Spidey-senses are tingling. There’s conflict afoot.

I quiz Noel about an article that I saw in 2015 and have never forgotten. It was featured on The Independent, and was headlined ‘Noel Edmonds says that ‘death doesn’t exist’ and that ‘Electrosmog’ is more deadly than Ebola’. I know that this sounds like something I just came up with, but I regret to tell you that is absolutely something he said. In real life. I’ll give you a minute to take that in.

Noel Edmonds reaffirms this view to me, speaking with the same unnerving passion he did in the YouTube clip I mentioned earlier. I nod politely. I begin to wonder if everyone’s had a little too much Echo Falls, and if I can really handle another four nights with these people. It’s at this moment that, for the first time all night, His Almighty Westness speaks.

“I really feel what you’re saying right now”, he tells Noel. We wait together for the next part of the statement, but it never comes. Kanye West outstretches his arm to Noel Edmonds. They shake hands. None of us can quite believe it. And for a moment, Noel and Kanye are right. It does feel as though death doesn’t exist. Nothing exists outside of this dinner party. Everything that matters is happening around my dining table at this very second.

The silence is broken by Kim Woodburn tutting into a wine glass.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” she drawls, rolling her eyes, “What a load of nonsensical tosh.”

“Excuse me?”, asks Noel, still hand-in-hand with Kanye West, an alliance he is clearly eager to keep going for as long as possible, on the off chance that he fancies funding another series of Noel’s House Party, “I don’t see you bringing anything to the table here, Kim.”

She widens her eyes, taking another generous gulp of Echo Falls - and I know exactly what she’s about to bring to the table. A big old fight.

Gemma Collins throws in her two cents.

“I think we should all calm down a little bit, d’ya know what I mean? I’m having a lovely meal at a fan’s house, I can’t be arsed with an argument.” Wise words, as always, Gemma. Wise words.

It all kicks off.

“You can be quiet, you talentless, orange foghorn!”, sneers Kim, “You’ve contributed nothing to the conversation this evening, other than talking about yourself.”

Gemma’s eyes seem to cloud over with anger, as her complexion quickly transitions from Dulux shade Tangerine Twist to Cranberry Crunch. She knocks the rest of her wine back. Everything goes quiet again for a moment, as Noel, Kanye and I watch the two TV divas stare at each other. It’s like a scene from an old Western, but with diamonds and veneers.

With a violent roar, she launches herself across the table, grabbing Kim by her fake ponytail. I jump up to hold her back, as Kanye leaps from his seat to hold Kim from Gemma. There’s a mad blur of acrylic nails and tufts of bleach blonde hair flying between them, some of it landing into the banoffee pie I had worked so hard on. Noel stands back, arms folded, watching the action in dismay. If you could see the whole picture, it might resemble a renaissance painting, the sort that could be hung in a gallery anywhere in the world and analysed for it’s artistic importance. ‘Nous aimons le boeuf’, it might be called. French for ‘we love the beef’. Doesn’t really matter it means, though, to be fair, as long as it sounds clever and artsy.

Noel shakes his head.

“What the hell am I doing here?”, he asks, frustrated, “I’m a huge TV star.”

Security eventually intervene, somewhat reluctantly, given the fact this is the most action they’ve seen on a shoot for Come Dine With Me, possibly ever. Producers watch back the footage of the fight on an iPad, sat on my sofa, attempting to mask their delight at what they’d caught on camera.

Kanye eventually stands up, soberly taking in the scene in front of him. Is this how Jay-Z felt as he left the elavator?, he wonders.

“I’m gonna take off”, he informs everyone, breaking the silence that had fallen over the room in the aftermath. But before he can teleport out of the room again, possibly blowing a hole in the other side of my house, the producer speaks up.

“Same time tomorrow? It’s Gemma’s night.”

Four more nights of this… four more nights, all for the chance to win £1,000… is it worth it?

Of course it is. It was a blast. Same time tomorrow, indeed.

To see some highlights from the iconic Preston week of Come Dine With Me, click here. To see Noel Edmonds speak with passion, click here. To follow me on twitter, click here, or here for instagram :)

#come dine with me #celebrity big brother #big brother #gemma collins #i’m a celebrity #comedy #tv review #reality tv #blogger #ukblogger #comedy writing

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rainbowitup · 6 years

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Long Live

It’s a typical Friday afternoon, and I’m in the car on the way to pick up McDonald’s for lunch. There’s construction on the overpass, which means traffic is backed up and barely moving at all. But all of that is okay because today when I got in the car, I chose to listen to Taylor Swift’s Speak Now album. Couldn’t even tell you why, other than it just struck me like it was a good idea.

So I listen to Better Than Revenge, then Dear John, and then Long Live comes on. And I’ve always had this strange connection with this song - something about the melody or the instruments or something has always kind of pulled at me.

And today, it brought me to tears. And it’s funny, because really, Long Live is about Taylor and her band, and how after years of being made fun of and laughed at by other musicians and critics, they finally made it. And I mean, I’m happy in life - with my friendships, with my marriage, my children, my home, my hobbies, and my job - but I haven’t made it. I’m not famous. This song shouldn’t resonate with me so deeply. I really don’t relate to the story she’s telling. Except I kinda do. Let me tell you why.

I said, “Remember this moment,” in the back of my mind. The time we stood with our shaking hands...

I was in Chicago and at my first ever Supernatural convention. I was in a line up in the hallway standing with hundreds of other Misha Collins fans, but I was alone because I didn’t know a single one of them. Turns out that didn’t matter. When I finally got into the room could see that I was actually standing in the same room as Misha Collins I couldn’t contain my excitement, and after literally flailing, the girl in front of me joined in and we became fast friends.

My hands were shaking. My heart was beating so erratically I felt like my chest was vibrating. I couldn’t feel my legs, and I was sweating profusely. It was the most excited/nervous/petrified I have ever been in my entire life, and I’ll remember that moment for as long as I live.

I said, “Remember this feeling.” I passed the pictures around...

In Toronto, at my second Supernatural convention, I was sitting alone and knew from prior experience it would be so much more fun if I made friends with the people I was sitting with. I’d be sitting with them all weekend, after all! So I did. I remember it started when somebody on stage made a mean (but harmless) joke about Misha, and I booed - loudly. The girls next to me nodded in agreement, and that was it, we were friends. After every op, we’d grab our pictures and then run back to our seats to share them with each other. We’d point out what we liked and what we didn’t. We’d go over every word, every look, every second of what it felt like to be close to our favorite people and we knew that we understood each other’s excitement and passion. We had found our people.

And it’s the same online after every convention. I sit and stare at pictures of my friends with their favorite people for way longer than I should. I listen enthusiastically and yell in all caps when they tell me about THE LOOK Misha gave them right before the picture was taken, or when Rob said, “Nice to see you again,” or what it felt like to have Jared’s giant body wrapped around them.

We pass the pictures around enthusiastically in this fandom.

I was screaming, "Long live the look on your face!"

It was one of my first ever photo ops, and it happened with Kim Rhodes and Briana Buckmaster. I wasn’t even huge fans of them at the time (BUT I AM NOW) but man, I was still excited. The best part for me during this op wasn’t meeting the famous people, though. It was sharing this op with my online-turned-real-life best friend, Michelle. We live in different countries, but I flew to Chicago and we roomed together. And Michelle was a huge fan of Kim and Bri. We had our photo op, which was one big squishy hug for the four of us, and while I thought it was fun and screamed at Kim and Bri how pretty they both were, Michelle was star struck. I can still see her face as clear as day in my mind today, a year later. She had tears in her eyes, and she was doing her damnedest not to cry, but the joy and awe she felt were broad casted all over her face. I loved her then and I love her now, and this is what I thought of when I heard that line today. “Long live the look on your face.” If I could create a world where she was that happy every single day, I would do it in a heartbeat.

This is what really got the tears flowing though: Can you take a moment? Promise me this: that you’ll stand by me forever. But if God forbid, fate should step in and force us into a goodbye... If you have children some day, when they point to the pictures, please tell them my name. Tell them how the crows went wild. Tell them how I hope they shine.

I have made friendships through Supernatural that I know will last a lifetime, but I’ve also made friendships that are strong and fulfilling in this moment that I know will not last forever. Because some of them are based solely on the fact that we are enamoured by the same show and the same people who are in the show - and that’s okay. Not every friendship is going to last forever. But that doesn’t make it any less meaningful.

So when I think about eventually losing touch with some of the people I spend so much time talking to now, this is what I think about. Please tell them my name. Tell them how I hope they shine. Because, God, even if I never talk to you again, you have no idea how deeply I want good, beautiful, long and shiny lives for you and your children. For the people you love dearest.

I hope one day when you’re old and grey, you find these dusty photo ops that we paid an obscene amount of money for, and you show your kids. I hope you tell them how awesome it was to squeeze our favorite people, and I hope you still smile about it thirty years from now. But more than that, I hope you point me out. I hope you show them who I am, and that you have a funny story to tell them about a time I made you laugh, or maybe a story about when you had a really bad day and I popped online at the right time and was able to make you smile instead. I hope you tell them about my kids, and funny things they said, and I hope you know that no matter how many years it’s been since we’ve talked that I will stand by you forever.

And I was screaming, "Long live all the magic we made!"

Listen, a lot of you create. You create art, and stories, and music, and poems. Your minds are unbelievable, and I spend a large chunk of my time sitting here wondering how I’ve become friends with some of the brightest, sharpest minds I’ve ever known. You help make the things I create better. You put feelings into words, give love to characters who need it, make fantasies become reality, and you support one another every single day whenever we do it. We share, and comment, and recommend what we love to other people who might love it, too. We might not love these characters or ship these two people together forever, but fuck if I don’t think of you guys when I hear: long live the magic we made. Because we have made magic, and we made it together.

And lastly: I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.

We’re not going to be this passionate about this TV show forever. We’re not going to rewatch the same 400 episodes (TULPA) enough to re-watch them and analyze them and GIF them and make up headcanons about the things that are never explained properly for the rest of our lives. We might love it forever, but it won’t always be exactly like this. There won’t always be conventions. There won’t always be opportunities to hop on a plane to go watch our favorite band play together. There won’t always be another new fan fiction story to read and discuss.

But for the record, for however long this phase of my life lasts, goddamn did I have the time of my life with you guys. You helped me discover who I am. What makes my blood start pumping. You helped me learn things about myself I never would have learned if it wasn’t for a TV show. You made me love who I am, exactly the way that I am. You showed me that friendship between two people can be deep and fulfilling even when we’re not in the same country. You have made me laugh more in the last two years than I’ve laughed in the last twenty, and I’m not exaggerating.

You have yelled for me when a picture of my favorite person literally made me breathless. You have watched me cry when I didn’t get the experience I hoped for during an autograph session. You have spent days being my tour guide in New York City. You’ve invited me into your home. You’ve spent hours creating art for stories I’ve written just because you wanted to. You’ve sent me songs that made you think about my characters - and you were so spot on I cried. You’ve sent me birthday cards and gift baskets and even wrote me porn. You held my hand virtually when my aunt was diagnosed with cancer and all throughout the years she was fighting it. You pretended to care when I vented about shit you had no idea what I was even talking about. You’ve had my back and fought my battles when I wasn’t strong enough to do it myself. You pushed me into doing something I was afraid to do, and the payback was enormous. Your wit, your GIFs, your minds, and your commentary have brightened my life exponentially in ways I will never be able to express.

In a nutshell: I’ve had the time of my life with you.

Long live, you guys. Long live all of this and all of you.

#Supernatural #fandom #bffs #taylor swift #long live

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bluephoenixdruidicprincess · 6 years

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Dom Sherwood Controversy -- Thoughts

So, I got no less than 5 asks and messages about my thoughts on the Dom controversy. I really didn't want to open this can of worms. But here goes.

In regards to Dom Sherwood using the "F" word? I personally don't give two shits or any amount of shits for that matter. Why doesn't this matter to me? Because the only thing I care about is Shadowhunters being a good show. That one day, Shadowhunters could become a show that is on par with a show like Supernatural, for instance. It's not currently but I cling onto that hope in order to justify continuing watching this poorly written show. I really don't care if the cast or crew are decent people. I don't need Dom to be a decent person for that to happen. Is he a shitty person for using that word? Possibly. I don't know the context in which he said the word nor do I actually care enough to do the research. Is he a homophobe? Is he not a homophobe? Did he mean his apology? Did he not mean his apology? Who can tell? Certainly none of us because we don't know him on a personal level although some of the fandom likes to think they do. But either way? It doesn’t matter to me. I don't actively watch interviews with the cast because I want to feel connected to them as people. I don't care if they're good or bad people. I just want them to do their job. All I care about is that they give a good portrayal on the show they're working on. Let's take for instance Kat McNamara. She seems like a lovely person. Truly, in the interviews I've seen her in, she's a complete saint and I'm not ashamed to admit I have a healthy amount of adoration for her as a person. Does that stop me from thinking at times that she may be the wrong fit for Clary? No. I've always thought that and I still do at times. Part of it is the writing but another part of it is that whenever Kat tries to portray Clary as fiery and selfless, she comes off as pretentious, condescending, and rude to me. It doesn't stop me from liking Kat as a person. It's just a flaw I find in her portrayal of Clary. Just like when casting was first announced for this show. There was a whole lot of talk about how amazing it was that there are so many POC casted. I personally didn't care. I didn't even notice until the fandom started pointing it out. I don't see race or ethnicity unless it's actually important to the story being told. And thus far in Shadowhunters, Izzy being portrayed by a Latina hasn't been super important to the story. Just like in the show, Lucifer, I had been watching and adoring the show for two seasons before I came across a post in the fandom talking about how amazing it is that the show is so heavily POC casted. When I saw that post, I was like, "Huh. I guess they are. I hadn't really noticed." It's great to see POC have a higher and more quality representation in media but at the end of the day, all I care about is the story being told and if I like the portrayal.

There's been a lot of speculation about whether Matt and Dom are still friends. Again, it doesn't matter to me. As long as they're professional and this problem doesn't get in the way of their portrayal of Alec and Jace and the parabatai bond, they can be bitter enemies for all I care. Are they friends or not? Have they ever been friends? Doesn't matter to me. Cast mates hating each other is nothing new in media. What does matter if the actors can table it and put forth a good end product.

One of my favorite episodes from the show Supernatural is this episode in Season 6 called The French Mistake. It's basically where Sam and Dean get sent to this parallel universe in which they find out that in this reality their world that they were living in, the world we know as Supernatural, is actually a fictional tv series. Much like it is in our reality. That there is actually a production crew producing their lives. There are a lot of reasons for why I like this episode. First of all, this episode is meta as hell. The French Mistake serves as this outlet for this show and everyone involved to make fun of themselves. But another reason I love this episode is a certain theme they kind of explore a little. All throughout this episode, we have Sam and Dean having to pretend they're Jared and Jensen but they're still behaving with the Winchester brotherly bond we all love about them intact. So on the outside looking in, within the confines of this episode, we have the cast and crew remarking constantly, "What's going on with Jared and Jensen? Why are they talking? Why are they spending off camera time together?" And my favorite iteration of the line, "They're acting weird but at least they're talking now." It's interesting because in the eyes of the fandom, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, and Mark Sheppard are viewed as really good friends. And in this episode, they're not portrayed this way. In this episode, we see Jared and Jensen as these very rich, very shallow people who don't like each other while in real life in the fandom we see them as great friends. Misha is portrayed as the pinnacle douchey actor obsessed with his twitter fan following instead of being the quirky and likable philanthropist the fandom views him as. Mark isn't in this episode but I'm sure if he was, we would've gotten some equally entertaining parody of him. This episode I enjoy because it introduces this idea that who these people are on the show, how they allow the fandom to perceive them, and who they are in real life can be very different things. These people allow us to see bits and pieces of who they are but none of us can really know as we don't have a personal connection with any of them despite how much we may want to. Also, this episode has an amazing scene where Jared and Jensen have to act badly on purpose and it's just wonderful. I have no idea how the crew was even able to get through one take of filming that scene without dying from laughter. Here it is if you've never seen it.

youtube

Do I have to like Dom as a person to be able to watch Shadowhunters? Absolutely not. All I care is that he gives a good portrayal of Jace. As long as he didn't break any laws, it won't blacken my perception of Jace. And while as horrible as it is to use the "F" word, it's not against the law. If you think that it should be, well then we're going to get into some Freedom of Speech territory and I really don't want to get into any of that with any of you. And whereas you can use the argument that it's wrong for an actor affiliated with a show about tolerance and the progression of LGBTQ relationships in society, it doesn't change the fact that you can still be a part of a show that does deal with those issues and not care about those issues yourself. I bet nowhere in Dom's contract does it say he has to believe in the same societal issues that the show is fighting against. All he needs to bring to the table is the ability to act. That's what he's being paid for. I would also like to point out how hypocritical it is to use the statement that's it's wrong for someone involved with a show about intolerance to use a derogatory slur seeing as how the fandom is pretty intolerant themselves of any opinion they don't agree with. This fandom will crucify anyone who doesn't agree with their very narrow-minded opinions about the show. Which, again, is ironic considering what the show is about. The Shadowhunters fandom is truly a very toxic environment which is why I only spend time within this fandom while the show is airing. Unfortunately, the show is not so good that I can warrant spending their hiatus time in the fandom too. Spending that much time in that toxic of an environment, I'm fairly certain I would grow to hate life.

And also, this goes along with the themes in The French Mistake. I have a personal belief that you should never meet your heroes. The French Mistake talks about how you can speculate on who that person is but that doesn't mean you know them or even if you should know them. Everyone should be very wary of putting media figures on pedestals. They're human just like us. Some of us are good people, some of us are bad people, some of us exist somewhere in the middle. Just like these media figures. Some of them good people, some of them are bad people and most of them exist somewhere in the middle. By putting that actor on that pedestal, idolizing them and not embracing the truth that you don't actually know them and that they have flaws, you're setting yourself up to be disappointed. Idolize the show, idolize the characters but be very careful about how you idolize real people. That's what I do. I love the show Supernatural. I love Castiel as a character. I love Misha Collins' portrayal of him. And I think Misha Collins is an amazing person. His efforts with Random Acts and making a difference in the world is wonderful. His quirky and free thinking personality gives me joy when I watch his panels. The fact that talking about his wife and children can move him to tears of joy and love on a stage in front of a thousand people is beautiful. But I also accept that he probably does have flaws that I may not like. He does say things at his panels that I don't entirely agree with but it doesn't change my perception of him as a person because I accept those things as a part of him.

I would like to close this with imparting a little bit of wisdom that I've acquired over my life. The word, "faggot" although a terrible and reprehensible word, is also just that, a word. I have been called too many insults to count throughout my life (whether it be my personal sexual preferences or other personal things about me) and it used to bother me until I realized this simple truth: You are the one who chooses to be offended. At the end of the day, words are just a compilation of letters. We give those insults power over us by choosing to be offended. We stop giving meaning to those words and those words lose their hold over us. Once I stopped seeing words like faggot or haole or whore or bastard as derogatory terms and just saw them as words and shake them off like they're yesterday's trash, I was much happier. Does it give Dom a pass? No, certainly not. Am I willing to forgive him for it if he was one of those actors that I did actively follow and idolize? Probably not. But would I also think he's a terrible person? Probably not because I don't know what was going through his head when he said it. I don't know the guy. I don't know if he said the word because he's a homphobe or not. I can't know because I don't know who he is as a person. I don't pass negative judgement on people I don't know. And I don't really care to pass any kind of judgement, be it good or bad, in Dom's case. As long as he gives a good portrayal of Jace, that's all that matters to me. I just want these actors to do a good job. Just like with Misha Collins, all I really care is that he gives a good portrayal of Castiel/Jimmy/Lucifer, whoever he happens to be portraying at the time. The fact that he seems to be in possession of this very beautiful soul is just something extra but hey, I'll take it. If theses actors are decent people outside of the work place, hey, that's icing on the cake but I don't necessarily need that icing to enjoy that cake.

But anyway, that's my stance on this very controversial topic with Dom. I personally don't care. I kind of rambled there for a bit but I feel like I got my point across. I have a feeling I'm going to lose a lot of followers but hey, that's life. I'm just doing me. You don't like it? You can either deal with it or get out. Or you can send me a mean message or a mean anonymous ask. I know how you trolls work. You're no different than the bullies I had in high school. And much like my bullies in high school, if you try to belittle me in any way, I'll ignore you. So, there's that.

#dominic sherwood #dom sherwood #shadowhunters #anon asks #unpopular opinions #dom Sherwood controversy

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the-chubbiest-dumpling · 7 years

Text

Bad Day

Summary: You asked Sebastian to go over some lines with you, but you don’t show up at the designated meeting place. When he finds you unable to get out of bed, he takes it upon himself to brighten up your day.

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x Reader

Word Count: 6650

Warnings: Swearing. Crying. Vulnerability.

You’ve known Sebastian for a while now.

You first worked with him in The Covenant, starring as one of the main protagonists, Sarah Wenham. Though you two didn’t interact much in the film, you got the chance to work closer with him on the show Kings as the role of his sister, Michelle Benjamin. From the beginning you could tell he was a very serious actor that loved what he did. You heard that he got the role of Chase Collins by videotaping himself in his kitchen, performing the scene where he goes to the Dean’s office to speak with him. You, on the other hand, auditioned in person like a bunch of other girls, and eventually got the role. Sebastian got the job on the spot. And when you worked with him on both projects, you were blown away by his acting, and his kindness.

You developed feelings for him in no time.

The third time you worked together was on the set of Gossip Girl. You managed to land the main role of Serena van der Woodsen, the lead protagonist, while he Carter Baizen. You were both happy to see each other, and caught up during set breaks and off-set as well. You were also super excited to find out that he’d be playing your boyfriend for some time, and to be able to kiss him. You really hoped that he couldn’t tell how happy you were about it, though you were bashful at times when you knew he couldn’t see you. He was overjoyed to be working with you again, and expressed it the very day he arrived on set, with a giant hug.

That smile will always punch you in the gut.

Over the years, you continued to send your congratulations of his achievements via text after exchanging numbers. From landing the role of Bucky Barnes in the MCU, to T.J. Hammond in Political Animals, to his iconic role of Lance Tucker in The Bronze (to which you couldn’t stop laughing), and to his most recent role of Jeff Gillooly in I, Tonya. You always complimented his acting abilities, especially when it came to expressing emotions in a subtle way. He paid the compliments back with some of his own, his favourite being how you go in and out of a role so fluently. And how your ridiculous shenanigans on set made him laugh.

Seeing him grow up and being able to even know him has been a privilege. You have no idea how he’s him. He’s so caring and generous and kind and funny and heart-warming and so incredibly talented. And handsome, of course. Can’t leave that bit out. You have different work schedules, so you don’t see him as often as you’d like, but you still text from time to time.

This is one of those times.

Two days prior, you had asked him to go over some lines with you. You had gotten your script a week ago, and reading them by yourself at home just wasn’t cutting it. It was lacklustre compared to doing it with your co-star and director present. And since neither of them were available to help you, you called up Sebastian and asked for his help. He readily agreed, and promised to meet you at a private coffee shop in the city to go over them with you. Today is the day you two confirmed to meet, at the designated time and place, but you’re not there.

In fact, you’re not even awake.

Your week began slow and steady, with an overall jaded mood. You didn’t know what was dragging you down. You felt fine for the most part, but as the week progressed, your mood decreased and you became agitated and stressed. You ate less, and became exasperated from doing simple tasks, like cleaning and doing laundry. You just didn’t have the energy for it.

It’s just one of those days, you had told yourself. But it felt like more than just having a crappy day.

Today just happens to be the worst of it.

You first woke up at nine o’clock in the morning after going to sleep at three the previous night. That was a regular thing for you: going to bed especially late and waking up in the afternoon. You got up to go to the bathroom, got something to drink, then went straight back to sleep. The next time you woke up was at two in the afternoon. The room was darkened as much as possible, but the sun still shone through your blinds annoyingly. You looked at the time, and sighed. You didn’t know what was wrong. You just didn’t want to do anything today. The only thing you were willing to do was sleep.

And sleep you did.

You manage to fall asleep for another two hours before waking up in a haze. You thought you had slept right into the next day, but it was only four in the afternoon. Even opening your eyes feels like a task you cannot complete. They burn from sleeping so much, and from rubbing them every so often. You stretch your arms and legs, but otherwise stay curled up in your nice, comfy, warm blankets.

However, you decide it’s finally time to wake up. But not get out of bed. You unplug your phone from the charger, and instantly groan from seeing all your notifications. Your phone was on silent the entire time, so you heard none of the phone calls, nor the worried texts that Sebastian made. You feel incredibly guilty for making him worry, but one look at his texts throws it out the window.

He’s on his way over.

Like, right now.

The most recent text was made thirty minutes ago, approximately the amount of time it takes to get from the coffee shop to your apartment. You grunt in frustration and drop your phone down beside you, and wipe your hands down your face.

“God damn it,” you hiss.

Sometimes you hate how worrisome he can be.

You live on the thirteenth floor of a twenty-story complex, giving you no time to clean up before Sebastian walks through the door. Your place is a mess, with dishes in the sink, clothes strewn on the floor, leftovers discarded on the counter, and abandoned laundry baskets left by the washing machine. You’re usually not such a slob, but these past few days have taken a toll on your mind. Since nobody really visits, there wasn’t much reason to do any of those chores. But now that Sebastian is on his way, you wish you could’ve just gotten off your ass and done it when it needed to be done.

Sighing angrily, you grip the sheets and pull them up to your chin, tuck your knees up, then close your eyes once more. You’re not going back to sleep, but a little eye rest will do you good before facing Sebastian. Seeing your messy apartment is one thing, but seeing you trapped in your bed and unwilling to get up is even more embarrassing. You have no idea what to say to him when he walks through the door.

Shit.

For reasons unknown, you left your door unlocked last night, which is completely out of character for you. You don’t live in a sketchy part of town, and you have nice neighbours, so there’s no real threat, but you’re nothing if not careful. Your carelessness scares you a little.

And no more than five minutes later, you hear a knock at the door, and the familiar, smooth voice you’ve come to love.

“_______?” Sebastian calls. “You in there?”

Even if you did raise your voice to confirm your presence, he probably wouldn’t even hear you. And let’s not forget the fact that you don’t even want him to be here. Well, be here and see you in this state. You’d rather him not see just how horrible of a week you’re having.

“_______?” he knocks again. When he doesn’t hear an answer, he grabs the doorknob. “I’m coming in.”

You hear the door click open, then pretend to be asleep in hopes that he’ll go away. But you know that won’t happen.

Sebastian haphazardly steps through your apartment, and takes note of how unkempt it is compared to his previous visits. He seemingly notices every little thing that’s wrong. It doesn’t feel right to him. He knows you like to keep your place neat and tidy for your own sake and that of visitors. He’s seen it a little bit messy, but not this much. There’s a certain smell to the air (that you’re the least bit proud of), and he finds the source in the kitchen. Dirty dishes and leftovers sitting on the counter. He puts his hands on his hips and pulls his lips to the side.

This doesn’t feel right.

“_______?” he calls out again, heading for your bedroom. The door is closed, so he quietly pries it open and peeks inside. It’s dark, but light enough for him to see you laying there, perfectly still, your shoulder moving the sheets up and down in time with your breathing. He says your name quieter this time, but you don’t give him a response. You bite your bottom lip and pray for him to go away, but he only comes closer.

“Hey,” he whispers, gently shoving your shoulder. He kneels down as you turn over on your side, with your eyes still closed. Knowing that you can’t keep up the charade anymore, you slowly open your eyes, and see his concerned eyes staring into you.

At first you act confused as to why he’s just waltzed into your apartment uninvited, but decide that that’s not the best route to go. You don’t want to yell at him; in fact, you don’t want to speak to him at all. It’s too taxing. So instead, you blink several times to get the sleep out of your eyes, and clutch the blankets.

“Are you feeling alright?” he asks, tilting his head. “You didn’t meet me today. I called you and sent some texts, but you never answered. Are you sick?”

Mentally, yes.

You shift your eyes to the left, avoiding his gaze. You have no idea what to say. You’re not just about to start blubbering about every little thing that’s wrong. Letting Sebastian see into your mind and how fucked up it is is not how you want this visit to go. So, being a “physical speaker”, you speak to him with your body.

You shrug your shoulders, and dart your eyes all over the floorboards when you can see his worried expression from your peripherals.

“Did something happen?” he asks, wanting to get to the bottom of this. He’s not mad that you didn’t meet up with him; he just wants to know if you’re okay.

You shake your head no, so he thinks of another reason why you’re laying in bed at four in the afternoon.

He goes the logical route.

“Bad day?”

You nod once, then pull the covers up higher to shield your mouth and nose. But the eyes are one of the biggest dead giveaways when you’re trying to hide the pain behind them.

“Have you eaten today?”

You shake your head.

“You need to eat something, _______,” he says gently. “Come on. I’ll make you something.”

He stands up and begs you to come with him, but you stay huddled up in your blanket cocoon. On a much better day you’d gladly sit in the kitchen and watch him cook you something to eat. But your mind and body is just not having it. You can tell by the look in his eyes that he really wants to see you get out of that bed. But you can’t. You just can’t do it.

Sighing, Sebastian comes back and crouches down beside you.

“I know it’s hard,” he starts softly. You dare to look him in the eyes. And when you do, you can’t look away. “I know that it feels like a chore to get up and walk, to eat, and to even speak. And that’s okay. But you can’t neglect yourself, _______. Otherwise you’re just going to be even more miserable than you already are. It might be a shitty time, but it’ll pass. Sometimes not as quick as you want it to be, and not always in the way you want, but with the right amount of care and patience, it’ll be alright in the end. So please, for me, can you come with me?”

He’s being so sweet and sincere, and here you are, being an asshole by not meeting him and making him come all the way to your place for nothing. You feel like he’s wasting his time by trying to get you to stand up and eat and probably shower. He hasn’t said it, but you know he can smell it. You’re so embarrassed by everything that you have to stop yourself from crying. You blink rapidly, and from being this close to him, Sebastian definitely notices.

“Listen,” he says. “I’m gonna draw you a bath. Make sure to use it before it gets cold.” He chuckles, which in turn makes you smile the tiniest bit. “While you do that, I’ll make you some late lunch. Okay?”

You can’t refuse him, so you nod. He nods back, then stands up again and takes his leave, keeping the door open. You hear him turn on the water, and even plugging the drain. You hate, but love that he’s doing this. It really means something when you know that someone genuinely cares. And that fact is enough to make you emotional.

You stretch once more, but still don’t have the strength to toss the blankets away. It’s too warm, and you’re too comfortable. But having a bath is probably–definitely–what you need. You trust that the bath will be warm, so closing your eyes tightly, you kick your covers to the end of the bed, and shudder from being exposed to the chilly air. Step One done. Now comes the hard part.

Getting out of bed.

Slowly, but surely, you drag one of your legs closer to the edge of the bed before letting it fall to the floor. You do the same with the other, and soon enough, you’re halfway there. But then you stop.

That’s enough progress for one day.

You’re stuck in that position for a minute before Sebastian comes back to retrieve you. When he sees half your body hanging off the bed, he has to smile. You look so ridiculous, but he has to be somewhat serious about it. He’s here to make you feel better, not make fun.

“Come on,” he says, walking up to you. “You’re almost there. You can make it.”

He brings his hands forward and grasps yours. You squeeze loosely, but no matter the grip, Sebastian pulls you to your feet. You stand upright instead of just falling back on your bed, for his sake. He really is trying to help, so you might as well comply to his efforts.

He keeps hold of one of your hands as he brings you into the bathroom, your bath drawn and ready. He even dropped in one of your bath bombs to make it seem more inviting. There’s even a towel set aside, as well.

“You stay in here as long as you need,” he says. “And when you’re done, I’ll have something ready for you to eat when you come back out. Sound good?”

You still can’t find your voice, so you just nod again. Sebastian doesn’t mind. He does hope that he’ll hear your voice at least once during this time with you. But for now, he’ll leave you be.

“And promise that you won’t fall asleep again?”

You nod.

“Thank you.”

He gives a quick kiss to your head before closing the door behind him to tend to his other duties. You allow yourself a small smile, because his beard tickled your forehead. You look down, and stare longingly at the bluish-green bathtub. You might as well. It’ll be good for your body, and for your mind. And to settle some of Sebastian’s nerves.

You strip down and gingerly step into the tub, sighing loudly as soon as you submerge yourself in the warm water. The bath bomb is Lush’s The Big Sleep, which gives off a calming, woodsy lavender scent. Lavender is an herb that aids in sleeping, but you don’t plan on sleeping any time soon. Not while Sebastian is still here.

You soak yourself for about half an hour. During that time, you periodically heard Sebastian rummaging around in your kitchen. Cooking or cleaning, you don’t know. But just being able to hear him in your home is enough to keep you at ease. Better him than anyone else, in fact. He hasn’t judged you for anything. Not the state of your apartment, nor yourself. He’s completely understanding, and knows where you’re coming from. It saddens you to think that Sebastian might have had days where he didn’t want to do anything either, and that’s why he can relate.

You’re definitely going to pay back the favour if that moment ever presents itself.

After thirty more minutes, the water has gone cold, and you’ve had a thorough rinsing. You dip your head under once more before standing up and wrapping yourself in the towel Sebastian laid out for you. You sadly unplug the drain and watch the colourful water disappear until it’s all gone.

You honestly feel better after that, and even feel more awake.

You smell something mouth-watering from the kitchen. Whatever Sebastian’s making, even if you don’t like it, you’re going to shove it down your throat because he took the time and energy to do so. You squeeze the water from your hair and shake it, then firmly tuck in the end of the towel and quietly emerge from the bathroom.

You peek behind the wall, and see him making something in a pan. His jacket hangs on one of the bar stools, and he’s removed his shoes as well. He’s made himself at home, to which you don’t mind at all. It’s refreshing to see him do common, everyday things. Not wanting to disturb him or draw attention to yourself, to skip back to your room and kick the door shut. Sebastian manages to catch a glimpse of your back before you disappear behind your door, making him smile.

You take your time getting changed, even though you eventually settle on wearing sweats and a plain grey V-neck. You put your hair up to dry, squeezing out the last of the droplets and discarding the towel on the floor. You look at yourself in the mirror, pulling your lips to the side. You’re feeling better, but you don’t know if you’re in the mood to talk yet. Perhaps an affirmative grunt or a sigh or maybe even a laugh. Either way, you’ll know when you join Sebastian in the kitchen.

You decide to throw on a hoodie before leaving your bedroom again. You tiptoe into the kitchen, and muster a weak smile when Sebastian looks up and smiles at you. You sit down on a bar stool and cross your arms on the counter, setting your chin on top of them.

“Better?” he asks.

“Mmm,” you hum quietly. It seems he spent most of his time cleaning up, since the floors and counters have been cleared off, and all the dishes have been done. It’s extremely inconvenient to not have a dishwasher, but one of these days you’ll buy one. For now, you’re your own dishwasher.

You cast your eyes downward, avoiding any kind of visual contact with him. You love looking at him, but not when you’re feeling so awful. He takes notice of your crestfallen expression, and hopes to god that the tips he looked up about what to do when your friend is depressed alleviates some of your pain.

“I’m making chicken and shrimp stir fry,” he says after a moment of silence, showing you the pan. “I hope you like it.”

You glance up at the pan, then to his eyes, then back down at the counter. His expression falls a bit from your lack of reaction, but he’s not going to stop trying. Baby steps is better than trying to push everything on you all at once. Small chit-chat is fine with him; just as long as he can get the message across that he’s here for you.

He throws in some teriyaki sauce into the pan, mixes it around a little, then turns off the stove and begins plating. You hate it being so quiet, but you have nothing to say to him. You would if you could think of something intelligent or funny, but your feel as if your mood has gotten worse. Despite the bath waking you up, your mind is not at ease. It has its good days, but today is one of the foulest ones.

While you’re lost in thought, Sebastian places your plate in front of you, setting a fork down beside it. The clank of glass to marble makes you jolt upright in a fright. It really worries Sebastian when you seem jumpy; and he hopes it’s not for the reason he’s thinking of.

“C’mere,” he says, picking up his plate. “Let’s sit over there.”

He motions to your Lovesac–The Big One–by the window. You peer over your shoulder at it, then back to him. He’s smiling that soft, sweet smile. The one you can never resist. You know you’ll love sitting beside him on a big fluffy bean bag chair and eating food he made for you, so you gather your plate and fork and follow him to the chair. You sit down first, and balance your plate on your leg as Sebastian carefully sits down next to you. You can’t even look at him, not even when he’s this close to you. Then again, when the proximity is nearly face-to-face, it’s hard not to feel just the slightest bit uncomfortable.

You eat in silence, as both of you expected. Sebastian is incredibly patient, as he’s always been. And very observant. How slow you eat, how quiet you are, how you’re not willing to even glimpse at him; he doesn’t want to be hurt by the fact you don’t trust him enough to talk about whatever is bringing you down, but he knows it’s not that easy. It’s much more complex than that.

After finishing his lunch, he gets up to wash his plate and put it back in the cupboard. When he turns around, you’ve finished as well, so he takes it upon himself to do the same. He takes your plate, washes it, then stores it before flopping down next to you again. You tuck your knees up higher, and play with the end of your sleeves. Sebastian supports his cheek in his palm, and stares down at you sadly. He has no idea if one of his “accidental pep talks” would help you any, but he’s going to try anyhow. It pains him to see you not smiling; and if he can get you to smile genuinely before he leaves, then his job is done.

“I’m here for you, _______, I hope you know that,” he begins softly. He knows you’re listening when you stop playing with your sweater. “Good day, bad day, doesn’t matter. Whatever you want, or need to talk about. I’m here for ya, okay? You don’t have to say anything, and that’s perfectly okay. I just want you to know that you’re not alone in this. You can trust me.”

Your eyes well up with tears when he starts being sentimental. You’re not used to hearing these sort things in real life. In movies mostly, some you even acted out yourself. And even then it was difficult to hear. You don’t know why you can’t just accept help when it’s being offered to you. But you’ve managed to come up with a handful of reasons:

1. You don’t want help unless it’s too late 2. You don’t look/seem mentally ill enough to be offered help 3. You like the attention because you felt unimportant/left out by many people in your life in the past and present, but don’t take the advice 4. You think you don’t deserve it

The main reason is probably–

All of them.

You know how incredibly honest and kind Sebastian is, and you truly appreciate those aspects of his personality. But when the person you’re pining for says those things to you while you’re extremely vulnerable is a nightmare. You never wanted him to see this side of you. Others have, but you’d be damned if he ever saw it. And now, after years of knowing each other and working together, it has finally come to light.

The tears slide down your cheeks, and you hastily wipe them away. Your lip quivers, so you bite down hardly on it. Sebastian wraps his arm around you when you begin to become distraught. He feels bad for making you cry, but he had to let you know. Assuring someone that you’re there for them is one of the most important things someone can do for another. And Sebastian always makes sure that he’s there for the people he cares about.

He’s about to begin another tangent, but you cut him off.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” you confess, your voice thick. You keep wiping your eyes as you speak, as the tears just keep on coming. “I felt fine at the beginning of the week. I was feeling great, even. And then I just… didn’t. I dunno if it was the people or my surroundings or what I had to do or I was anxious about everything and nothing or it was everything at once. All I know is that I just got so fucking tired and lost all my energy and motivation. I didn’t wanna get up, didn’t wanna do anything productive, and apparently, didn’t wanna go over my fucking lines with you. I’m so shitty that I couldn’t even text you back when I woke up the second time, or at all. And I was being rude to you earlier by not answering you.

Everything is just so overwhelming all of a sudden and I don’t know what the fuck to do with myself! My friend almost died the other day and I forgot to pay my rent and I don’t know if I did the right thing with agreeing to be on this new show and I’m going to fucking explode because it seems like life suddenly hates me! I try to put on a good front and wait until I’m by myself to just fucking cry about it, but it’s getting harder and harder to hide it and I’m scared that no one will shut up about this side of me!”

Your throat completely closes up so you can’t speak anymore. You’re a sobbing mess now, and shove your face in your hands so you can cry your heart out without him seeing. The sound of you squealing from crying so hard breaks his heart. He pulls you to his chest and rubs your arm as he attempts to comfort you.

“A lot of life is a struggle, _______,” he begins. “We just don’t see it all the time because our eyes are always trained to look for ‘happy things’, but life is always a struggle with beautiful moments in-between. We have to keep going. That’s all there is. And most of those beautiful moments, at the end of the day, are pretty simple. Good company with people that get you. Or being proud of a goal maybe you set for yourself. Anxiety is just part of our past. It’s always gonna be there as long as we are human because a long time ago it protected us. But now it’s like having an old alarm clock that still goes off even though you may not need it anymore. But everyone has it. Go forth, go forward. Take a few breaths and onwards we go. There’s nothing more heroic in the world than that.”

This time, his pep-talk isn’t accidental. He becomes the most heart-felt person when he sees a friend in some kind of peril. Despite that, he hasn’t had the chance to do it in person most of the time. A lot of the time has been on Instagram, and small snippets during interviews. He’s hugged a fan or two at a Con where they couldn't get through a question for him, but he never had enough time to hear a full-length explanation about why they’re having a bad day. Doing this with you right now it making him feel all sorts of things: pride, empathy, determination, love… he really wants to get through to you, and help you see the bright side on things.

But again, he knows–amongst other things–that not every person wants to feel happy during a time of great vulnerability. Preaching to you won’t help you any if you won’t take his advice. Do or don’t, Sebastian will still be there.

He physically feels you calm down, and hears that you’re full-blown sobbing has dwindled down to sniffling and light crying. You’re definitely not ready to talk yet, so Sebastian keeps ranting in what he hopes is the best way possible.

“And you know what? No matter what just be yourself. That’s it. Just be you. Whatever you feel walking into the room you feel. That’s your truth. Don’t deny it. Don’t fight it. If you’re nervous, you’re nervous. If you’re scared, you’re scared. Don’t try to change how you feel on the day. Embrace it. Mike Nichols said ‘bring your day to the stage’, meaning you bring what you’re going through that day to the work. Even if you’re nervous once you embrace it and go ‘this is me right now and that’s that; they don’t like it, well then, they don’t like honesty’ then you will relax into it. We spend too much time bullying ourselves trying to be other things. Be who you are. Own it. It’s okay to give yourself some love once in a while. Be kind to yourself as you would be to a friend in need.”

What you honestly can’t believe is all the sap that’s coming out of his mouth. You know he can be incredibly encouraging sometimes but this is just… wow. You didn’t know know that people could be capable of such perception and understanding. It blows you away, actually, that Sebastian took the time to say all of that to you in hopes that it would make you feel better. You appreciate his efforts. You manage to stop crying completely and just sniffle. Your throat is raw, and you’re sure you’ll need some Vics and pain killers, but you feel ten times better after having a big cry. Your head hurts a little, but other than that and your throat, you feel okay.

“You’re pretty fucking unpredictable, you know that?” you chuckle, wiping your eyes. You finally relax after being so tense, and avoid looking him in the eyes still. You’re not ready for that just yet. He smiles down at you, happy that he got something out of you.

“I try,” he laughs. He continues to rub your arm, and patiently waits for you to give him some sort of recognition to his words, but when he doesn’t get it, he decides to throw in another point.

“I have a therapist,” he says, which seems to grab your attention. You glance up at him once before staring back at his legs. “You can see him if you want. Or I could help you find one, if you’d like. I don't wanna shove this down your throat, but my offer will always stand.”

“I see,” you say. “…now I know where you get all your astounding advice from.”

“Yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I get a lot of good guidance from him, but I throw in my own thoughts and opinions as well. Whenever I see people going through a bad time, I can’t help but just reach out to them and see if I’ll be of any use. And it makes me feel great about myself when I find out that I am. Making a difference in people’s lives is something that I’ve always wanted to do. And it’s very fulfilling to know that I am.”

Finally, you have the strength to sit up and face him. You wipe your eyes once more before looking into his eyes.

Bad mistake.

He’s got a mix of puppy-dog eyes and smiling like you’re the most important thing in the world. You’ve lost your voice, and your thoughts are scattered, but after clearing your throat and looking away from him, you manage to think of a response.

“I, uh. Um. T-Thank you for um. A-All of that. I don’t know what to say other than that I’ll… think about it.”

“That’s quite okay with me,” he smiles. “But can you promise me something?”

“I guess…”

“When you’re having a bad day, like today, will you come talk to me about it? You can text me, call me, meet in person. It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll always be around. And I promise you that you won’t be inconveniencing me. Above all else, taking care of yourself comes first. Say you have an illness and cannot come in. You matter, _______. And you hurt yourself by neglecting your health. So please, please, talk to me when you need to.”

You can’t push him away when he’s being this sincere. But you don’t want to push him away anyhow. How can you? You love him to death; closing him out of your life would benefit neither of you. Smiling, you nod your head.

“Okay,” you agree. “I will. Thanks, again. I–I can’t–“

You cut yourself off because you begin cry-laughing. You rub your eyes and laugh to shake off the new feeling inside you. Sebastian smiles widely when he finally hears the laugh he’s been waiting to hear. You look away from being embarrassed, but Sebastian just grabs hold of you and squeezes you into a giant hug. You squeal happily this time and hide your face again because he’s being so adorable.

“Sebastiaaan!” you whine.

His arms are so strong.

He loosens his grip, causing you to go lay across his lap. You nuzzle your face in the soft warmth of your Lovesac, then peek over your shoulder. He has his head back, and is giving you the biggest, toothiest grin. You can’t help but smile back just as widely.

God I love him.

You shift around so you’re sitting with your legs in his lap. You cross your arms and lay your head to the side. The way you look at him is like he’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. And he is, he really is. Your eyes become heavy, but you blink rapidly to keep them open.

“I’m okay,” you say before he gets the chance to poke fun at you. “I’m awake. I’m alright.”

“Nah, I wasn’t gonna say anything like that,” he says.

“Then what?”

“You look cute when you’re cozy.”

You smush your face into the fur and pull your hood over your head to hide your flushed cheeks. He grins proudly to himself and pats your legs to get your attention. You don’t want to look, but you pull your hood to the side slightly.

“What if I stay here for the night, hmm?” he suggests. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m a lover of pizza and movies.”

You pull your hood away and cock your head to the side. He’s serious? He sounds serious. And he wouldn’t be smiling like that if he wasn’t. Biting your lip, you knit your brows together as you think. He’s just cleaned your apartment, made you some late lunch, and boosted some confidence in yourself. Plus, he made the trip all the way to the coffee shop, then to your apartment. It’d be rude to kick him to the curb. You smile softly at him.

“Alright,” you say. “You can stay.”

“Sounds good.”

For the entirety of the night, Sebastian is nothing but a bundle of laughs. When you can, you stare at him for as long as possible. You’ve fallen in love with every part of him; his face, his personality, his charm, his talents, his inspiration. From the first time you met, you already lost to him. Everything about him is so inviting and appealing; no one would be able to resist him. And as far as you know, no one has.

He’s still his useful, goofy self, and takes every opportunity to make you laugh. Making fun of the movie, telling a joke, eating his food weirdly, and even a funny story he has about his own personal life and things of the past. Anything to see you having a good time. Everyone has their bad days, and sometimes they need them, but Sebastian decided to cut that short. If he’s crossed a line and you actually wanted to be alone, then he’ll apologize profusely and leave right after. But so far, you’ve given no indication of that desire.

As the night comes to a close and you begin yawning and rubbing your eyes, Sebastian begins to turn everything off. He stores the leftover pizza in your microwave and helps you to your feet. But before you go to bed, you turn to face him.

“I really appreciate this, Sebastian,” you say. “I honestly didn’t mean to get that upset, but it just washed over me. So… thank you, once again, for making me feel better. I know it’s not exactly what you wanted to do today, and I’m sorry for that but… it means a lot to me. What you said. And I still can’t thank you enough for–“

Sebastian cuts you off by pulling you in for a hug. You’re a little dumbfounded at first, but you quickly relax into his embrace and wrap your arms around him. He strokes your hair and rubs your back while gently swaying back and forth.

“That’s enough of that, _______,” he says. “I’m always here for you, remember? For the good and the bad. I’ll be here.”

“Thank you,” you mumble into his chest. You close your eyes and breathe him in, smiling all the while. The hug lasts for a relatively long time, but it still feels too early when you pull away from each other. You both smile, and he ruffles your hair before sending you off to bed.

“Want me to be an alarm?” he asks as you walk away.

You stop as you grab the doorknob and look over your shoulder.

“I’ll be fine,” you say. “Feel free to use the big ass bean bag chair as a bed. But I have a guest room if you’d prefer that.”

“I think I’ll take my chances with the chair,” he confesses. “But thanks anyway.”

“Alrighty, then. Goodnight, Sebastian.”

“Goodnight, _______.”

The moment you enter your room and close the door, Sebastian waltzes over to the Lovesac and grabs a blanket from the couch. He steps out of his pants and jumps down on the chair, pulling the blanket close.

He feels so euphoric from being able to get your mind off things, and he wants to feel that way more often. He stares longingly at your bedroom door, and whispers a personal goodnight of his own before falling asleep.

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academiablogs · 6 years

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Self-Published Books: Better Than the Drive-Thru

For many authors, the very phrase “self-published” means defeat. And to some it’s simply the “easy way out.” Conversely, many people would never buy a book that didn’t have the stamp of approval from Tor, or Harper Collins, or Penguin. And let’s be honest, some people only buy books from big name authors and no one else, publisher be damned. So what chance do indie authors stand, who often publish on their own and are relative nobodies? In general, people who laugh when you tell them you self publish have one (or all) of the following arguments:

* If you can’t get an agent or publisher to accept your work then you probably have no business being an author; you’re simply not good enough.

* Why buy a ‘generic’ book when there are thousands—millions—of bona fide works of art to choose from? Who needs “Best Value” Cheerios when normal Cheerios are cheap and readily in stock?

* Indie books are poorly written and edited, making it a chore to read them. The big publishers pay people to smooth out the kinks of their authors’ works—but indie authors either can’t afford to or simply don’t care.

* Indie books are derivative and unimaginative copies of the best sellers, much like a ‘direct to video’ movie (who seriously wants to watch Star Crash instead of Star Wars?)

These are all compelling arguments, and like many stereotypes they contain a kernel of truth. Are there many poorly written and edited indie books on the market? Of course. Are some of them derivative and generic versions of the best sellers? Sure. And do many indie writers turn to self-publishing when all the big name agents and publishers turn them down. You bet they do. Ah, so I’ve admitted the truth—it’s all true, you just said so!

Proving some things true doesn’t prove all things true. Just because McDonald’s gets your drive-thru order wrong twice in a row doesn’t mean they always get your order wrong in every city throughout the country. It ultimately comes down to the individual franchise or workers, but it can’t be indicative of the experience of an entire restaurant chain. Whatever you think about McDonald’s food (and I boycott it, personally) the reality is that many managers take pride in their businesses, and many workers are happy to do a good day’s work. Not every teenager working a minimum wage job hates life—and by extension, hates you. And even I, who hate McDonald’s, have occasionally been forced to eat there on a road trip and can get good service and decent food and think, “well, okay, so it’s not always bad—but I still don’t like it.”

You see where I’m going with this? Are all indie writers hacks, charlatans, and wannabes? Do they slap together books simply to turn a quick profit and then skip town? Even more so than McDonald’s owners, they’re people with dreams, many of whom work long hours at a ‘real’ job and then come home, bleary eyed and exhausted, and still log in a few hours with a work-in-progress, hoping that one day it will climb the charts and validate their secret passion. Because the reality is that not everyone can be a writer. There are just too many books already out there, and too few people who want to pay people for writing books (and sadly, too few people who want to buy them).

Conversely, there are probably millions of people who are genuinely talented writers, at least half of whom also exhibit traits of genius—people who could legitimately revolutionize the field. How many of their works, however, will ever reach print? Probably only about 1%, and that’s being generous. A sad truth of the modern world is that many talented people will die without a single person recognizing their gift. Some will get a measure of recognition, but not enough to quit their ‘day job,’ and many more will give up in despair and look back at their affair with art with revulsion—or guilt.

The ability to self-publish is, in some ways, one of the most compassionate bones ever tossed to society via technology. Now everyone can publish their works and see their works in print. True, the price of getting every talented writer a book is that millions of untalented writers and outright hacks get one, too. But is that worth the cost of admission? In general, I would say it is; after all, bad books come and go, but the good books stay, as long as enough people find them first. And now, even in a field drowning with books, it’s still possible to find a truly good book—even by an unknown author. Below are some very compelling reasons to buy an indie book and support a self-published author despite everything you’ve heard, everything you’ve said, and everything you know (or think you know) from first-hand experience:

* Most self-published writers are writing against the current, so to speak; no one asked them to write this book, they’re not being paid for it, and they often do so at great personal and professional expense (i.e. when they should be taking care of kids or doing their jobs—or sleeping!).

* They’re following a dream. Sure, professional authors are, too, but they’ve already achieved it in some measure. Indie writers are all like Cyrano de Bergerac (Rostand’s once-famous play), who claimed that the only fight worth fighting is the one that you know you can’t win. The fight that you’re doomed to die in. That’s the indie writer: howling into the winds having already seen the pitiful fate of their comrades.

* They can afford to take chances. An established author has to think about their agent, publisher, editor, audience, and so forth, and all of them have a say in what they write and when. The indie author can write whatever the hell they want. They can fly in the face of trends and even defy industry wisdom about what sells and who wants it.

* Usually the people who start new trends are doing it where no one is looking. Honestly, Steven King isn’t going to change the landscape of horror or science fiction at this point—he did what he did, and his moment is over (though he continues to write good books). However, even he came out of left field and changed the market. Today, that’s most likely going to come from someone who doesn’t have the ear of the industry. Someone who is writing in obscurity until an intrepid reader catches wind of it and says, “why isn’t everyone writing like this?”

* You can actually make a difference in these authors’ lives. If you write a fan letter to J.K. Rowling, you might get a generic reply from one of her many handlers. I’m sure she’s happy you like her books, but really, she has bigger fish to fry. But if you read the work of an indie writer, and you write them...then will respond to you. Likewise, it will make an immediate and tangible different in their lives. You could even become the catalyst that makes a great writer about to give up write their next bestseller.

* Indie writers are more likely to be fans of the genres they write in. All-too-often, genre fiction catches the attention of an ‘important’ writer who wants to revitalize their career, like Margaret Atwood trying her hand at writing a superhero comic. I’m pretty sure she could give a shit about superheroes in general, or even comics; indie writers, on the other hand, are much more likely to read comics and to know the universe they’re actively trying to shape. In other words, they’re probably more like you.

* One word—surprise. Simply put, you don’t know what you’re going to find with an indie book. The big publishers are very predictable in what they publish: namely, what has already sold. Indie writers might be trying the same thing, or they might try their hand at something completely different. You’re much more likely to be taken unawares by an indie than a mainstream writer, though admittedly big writers can surprise and indies can disappoint.

After all, reading isn’t a formula or an equation. It’s a gamble...and sometimes, it really pays off. So while there are many good, sound reasons to never buy a self-published book, there are some damn good reasons to defy current wisdom and do just that. And honestly, buying a book is never a bad thing to do or something you should regret. In fact, you’re more likely to get better service and a more wholesome product than if you go through the McDonald’s drive thru! It’s a hell of a lot cheaper, too...

#indie writing #amwriting #booklr #bookish #bookstagram #books

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aplaceforrtprompts · 7 years

Text

It’s Gonna Be Me

A/N: This was another commission from the wonderful @onceitbubbles and I could not thank them enough for doing so. If you guys have any questions/want to commission me I have a page here!

Pairing: Trevor Collins x Reader

Word Count: 1,623

Prompt: Soulmate AU where you hear the same song as your soulmate. The AH team gets some money sent to them so they buy pizza. Trevor is humming songs that the team makes fun of him for because he’s constantly singing boyband songs due to his soulmate (the reader). When the pizza delivery comes they find out it’s actually Trevor’s soulmate and he’s distracted so he doesn’t pick up on it right away.

“Here. Why don’t you go through some of the letters,” Trevor suggested shoving a pile of envelopes into Jeremy’s arm as he was searching for the next package to open on the unboxing stream.

“Well, alright then,” Jeremy shrugged and took the stack.

“Oh, another knife,” Ryan waggled his eyebrows and held up his new toy, “Thanks, uh, Peter Snettik. I don’t know if I said that right but thanks.” Ryan left the main group to go through his new knife at one of the targets they had set up.

Jeremy had gotten the first letter open and had the rest of his pile tucked under his arm, “This one is pretty long so I won’t read the whole thing but it did come with this love artwork,” he flashed the drawing to the camera, “And I’ll just read the last paragraph since it sums most of the letter up though it is a very sweet letter. Thank you, Stephanie Dayton. Stephanie says, ‘Thanks most of all to all of guys for making me laugh even in the darkest of times. Your antics never fail to get me to smile and I can’t wait to see how you all grow in the future.’ Well, thanks, Stephanie.”

Jeremy waved the letter as a few of the guys awed.

Trevor took the letter from Jeremy, “And this will go on the board with all our other letters.” He hopped back behind one of the cameras and aimed it at the cork board, “Look at all those lovely letters.”

He returned the camera back to its normal position before half tripping over all the boxes and pinning the handwritten letter to the board.

Michael tore open the next box and while he did, Jeremy opened the next letter on the stack. He looked inside and then back to the envelope.

“What’s in it?” Trevor asked, zooming in.

Jeremy pulled out the contents of the envelope and held up a few twenties and a post-it note that said ‘pizza money’.

“Aww, shit we get pizza!” Michael cheered, snatching up the money.

“There’s no letter or return address so we can’t send it back,” Jeremy showed the envelope that only had their address scrawled on it and a stamp to the camera.

“Here,” Michael shoved an unopened box in Gavin’s arms as he went over to the computer.

“What are you doing?” Gavin raised an eyebrow.

“Ordering us some pizza,” Michael rolled his eyes like it was obvious. “Cause someone made it rain up in this bitch!” he shot the small pile of twenties off his palm and into the air above Jeremy and Gavin.

Gavin squawked and tried to pick up the twenties while Michael made his way over to the computer. Geoff finally made his way on camera but only to hover over Michael as he ordered pizza.

The stream went on and as Trevor sort of spaced out, watching one box being opened after another he started to sing to himself a little.

“Call me a hater, if you want to but I only hate on him 'cause I want you,” he sang softly, even dancing a little.

Trevor didn't even know he was doing it until Jeremy spoke up, “Are you singing ‘NSync?”

“I- I don’t know,” Trevor admitted.

“I wouldn’t doubt it. His soulmate is all about that trash nineties pop music,” Michael snickered.

“Did you- How did you know that was an ‘NSync song?” Jack laughed looking to Jeremy.

“What?” he gave a defensive look. “They were a good band in the nineties.”

“Your soulmate has shite taste,” Gavin looked over at Trevor.

“She does not! A little old school but not bad,” Trevor crossed his arms though a small blush was apparent on his cheeks. “Okay. It sucks but they like it so.” He finished his sentence with a shrug.

Everyone gave him a look but then went right back to opening packages up. Trevor kept on humming just so he wouldn’t burst out into song again. He stopped fiddling with the camera long enough to start digging through packages that he could possibly open.

The stream went on relatively normal for them until about half an hour later when there was a knock at the door.

“Come in!” Trevor sang as he picked up a glitter bomb. He smiled and turned to the camera.

You pulled out one of your headphones, still dancing a little to the music blasting through them and you knocked on the door again.

“I got it!” you heard a voice shout from the other side. There was some screaming and a crash but honestly, you had heard weirder things while delivering pizza.

There was some more scrambling then finally the door opened to a neon green room. A curly haired redhead and skinny, large-nosed man stood at the door while screaming and talking continued behind them.

“Pizza?” you questioned, holding up the warming bag, hoping you were in the right place.

“Aww, fuck yeah,” the redhead nodded and shoved the other, “Gavin, go get the money.”

You stood there awkwardly as the redhead stared you down. His attention was pulled away when someone shouted at him, “Michael, get your ass over here.”

He gave you a shrug then ran off letting you stay at the door. You peered in to see many cameras and a bunch of grown men with boxes. Maybe this was the weirdest place you ever delivered to.

You began to get lost in your song as you waited and began singing softly, “Call me a hater, if you want to but I only hate on him 'cause I want you.”

You didn’t notice as one of the guys froze and turned to you. You were still singing to yourself as the short bald one stood in front of you.

You stopped singing and held your hand expectantly.

“Oh, no. I think Gavin is grabbing your money. Was that ‘NSync?” he asked.

“Yeah! Are you a fan. I’ve been in such a late nineties, early two thousands mood lately,” you explained.

“I know someone like that,” he mentioned. “Any thoughts on Backstreet Boys.”

“I mean ‘Listen Baby I'm sorry. Just wanna tell you don't worry. I will be late don't stay up and wait for me’,” you sang with a smile, “Such a jam.”

Jeremy couldn’t hear if Trevor sang with you but he notice Jack perk up and look from the dark haired boy back to you.

Jeremy nodded in approval and sang a little bit of another song and you picked right up with a smile. You pulled out your headphone as you enjoyed your little impromptu jam session. With every song you sang Trevor would start to change the song with you.

“I think my soulmate is playing with the radio or something because she is not settling on something at all,” Trevor shook his head as he opened another glitter bomb.

“You’re an idiot,” Jack shook his head.

“What?” Trevor looked over at him, dropping the empty tube on the floor.

Now that Jeremy knew you were Trevor’s soulmate he tried one more thing, “Do you listen to anything new?”

“Oh, loads. What were you thinking?” you questioned.

“Faster by Matt Nathanson,” he raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, the one that goes, ‘Make me a liar. One big disaster. You make my heart beat faster’,” you sang once more.

“Finally, something new and good!” Trevor shouted making you jump. He hummed to himself for a moment and sang, “It's the way you swell, slow. Pushing right out your seams. It's the way you smile, baby.” It was mostly to himself but you looked from Jeremy to Trevor finally catching up.

Jeremy nodded in confirmation so you continued on much louder, “When you've got me on my knees!”

Trevor looked up in shock at you. He was finally piecing it together himself and walked closer, joining the group already around you. You started to hum ‘Makes Me Ill’ again and his eyes lit up.

“Pizza girl!” he shouted with a big smiled.

“Weird recording dude!” you laughed with a grin of your own to match.

“Sorry, I’m Trevor. I think we may be soulmates,” he told you, eyes bright.

You looked at the group around the two of you and they quickly busied themselves.

“Y/N,” you set down the pizzas and held out your hand.

“Y/N. I like that,” Trevor nodded. “Are you free right now? You can join us or we can go somewhere.”

“I can’t,” you almost instantly felt bad saying that due to the look on Trevor’s face. ‘Working but I get off in two hours. You got a phone?”

Trevor instantly perked up and pulled out his phone. You typed in your number and texted yourself so you had his number.

“I’ll see you later, Trevor,” you smiled and passed back his phone before leaving.

“See you later, Y/N,” he gave you a dreamy smile.

It didn’t hit you until you were halfway down the hall when you realized something was missing.

You ran back and knocked on the door. Trevor almost instantly answered. “Forget something?” he chuckled.

“Two things actually. First,” you grabbed his shirt and stood on your toes to give him a quick kiss. You heard snickering from his coworkers.

“And the second?” he asked slyly.

“Um,” you laughed softly. “My pizza bag and payment. So I guess three things. Just because your my soulmate doesn’t mean you get free pizza.”

Trevor chuckled, “Let me go grab it.”

He paid you and you grabbed your bag.

“Got everything?” he asked as he was wishing you goodbye again.

You looked at him and smiled once more, “I do now.”

#trevor collins x reader #trevor collins imagine #Ragehappy #rooster teeth reader insert #rooster teeth imagine #TrevorC #commisions

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galivantingg · 4 years

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Short Story Slam 2020

June 5th 2020

for @short-story-slam

The war was bad. Really bad. All war is bad, but this one was horrific, not because of the atrocities committed by one country to another, but the atrocities committed from one person to another. People took the war as an excuse to pillage, rape, and kill. Neighbours turned on neighbours, family on family. In the areas where I lived, it was less common. I was very privileged in that sense. I was very privileged in general. In fact, it took a know at our door to really understand how bad things had gotten. The news didn't show the full story, didn't show the crimes being committed in the streets, meters from out door. And when that knock finally came, it was to drag us out of our home by the collar of out shirts, pilled into a truck with a bunch of other young twenty somethings, separated from the rest of our family by age and gender.

That was the first time I had heard about the Citadel. There were many rumours, the main one being that it was a small group of extremists that had been part of the group called Anonymous. I hadn't heard of them either, but they were supposedly a super powerful hacker group who knew too much about too many things, and had threatened to release all the evidence of the government official's crimes. The government officials hadn't taken the threat seriously, which led to the release of the information, and World War Three. Entire government systems collapsed over night, and where was I? Sitting comfortably in my home, enjoying three meals a day, and air conditioning.

I almost threw myself from the truck right then and there, hoping the one following us would crush me. I felt ashamed that I knew nothing of what had been happening, that my family and I had gotten off scot free. But something held me back. The curiosity of what would happen to us. we were taken to a castle of sorts, it looked big and old, and we were divided again. They didn't speak to us, what looked like police officers, except to tell us to step forward or move or get into a line. They had lots of weapons, and no one else was seemingly planning on fighting back, so I did as I was told. I found out later that we were one of the last batches of people picked up by the Citadel, and that there had already been uprisings that had been squashed almost immediately.

All I really remember form the sorting is that I was assigned Zone Three, and when I asked about my family, the woman at the table laughed and told me cruelly that I would not be seeing my family again. She took away anything I had of value, my family necklace and a woven bracelet my best friend had made for me, before sending me along to be packed up in the back of another truck. This ride was longer, and was spent in the dark. I could hear some quiet sobbing and some reassuring going on, but I paid it no mind. I couldn't place why I felt nothing. None of this was affecting me in any way. I didn't care that I had been separated from my family, that I was now living in a totalitarian government. I just didn't care, at least, not until months later, when they announced the Hecatomb. The real world's version of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. That got a reaction out of me. I didn't know what to call it, maybe I was too scared to admit what feeling it had given me, but in any case, it doesn't matter now.

What matters now is that we are gathered in the Square to listen to the Choosing. I was standing with the other twenty three year old women, near the back. The boys and men were across us, separated by a stage where our mayor was standing. Unlike The Hunger Games, your name is not added once every year you are eligible, and the eligibility age doesn't start at twelve. We start at the age of fifteen, which is still a little barbaric, and your name is entered as many times as you are old. Since this is the first Hecatomb, my name is only in there twenty three times. The youngest kids only have their name in fifteen times, and the oldest have theirs in twenty five times. The next year, your name is added again for the number of years you are. So next year, my name would be entered an extra twenty four times. The thing about the Choosing that is like Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games is that you can enter your name up to once per day for extra money or food.

Now, I am not a good person.

I do not enter my name extra times to protect others, I enter so I can live a comfortable life, because I know I will never be chosen. It just won't happen, my luck always seems to work out like that. So I took the extra money and food, and sometimes, when the guilt of how I had changed so drastically wormed it's way into my mind, I'd go out around the town and hand out money and food to those who need it more than I do. There weren't any babies, but there were young children, taken from their mothers and fathers and given to other men and women.

There was one reason I started doing this more regularly, as opposed to just once a month. That reason is Nyima. I see her around the community, handing out food and money too. I've also seen her in Town Hall, entering her name. She has young kids she takes care of, no doubt entering solely to feed them. She is the most beautiful person I'd ever seen. She stood tall and proud, a toddler clutching at her legs. Our eyes met for a second, and I was instantly drawn in, and found myself looking forward to seeing her every day at Town Hall. We never exchanged words, but we crossed paths once while we were both handing out food and money, and the nod of approval she gave me was all the motivation I needed to be hitting the streets every day.

She was a sudden light at the end of the tunnel, my light. She was the reason I didn't drink myself into oblivion, the reason I didn't starve or overeat just to feel something. She was the reason I am who I am today. Which brings us to our present day. A this point, it had been almost ten months since we had been rounded up and sorted into our zones. So that means roughly three hundred days that the both of us had added our names to the twenty three and twenty four that were already in there. I still wasn't a good person, but I knew good person habits and tendencies, so maybe I was like a goat in sheep's clothing? Not quite a sheep, but close enough.

Back to the moment. The Square. We were all standing there, those of us eligible roped off and the rest standing on the outskirts of the Square. Listening. Waiting. Mayor Reyes was digging around in the bowl that held three hundred and twenty three slips of paper with my name on it, and I was just starting to think that maybe I would get picked when the Mayor finally spoke.

"Eavan," her voice was loud and clear, and it took a while for it to register.

"Well shit," the words left my mouth before I could clamp it shut, and apparently I said it loud enough that the people around me heard as they looked at me with shocked expressions. I don't know why they're so shocked, and then I remembered that I don't really exist in their lives. I was the faceless hand that gave them money and food, nothing more. These young adults had never interacted with me. These young adults have never heard me swear, let alone speak. I think it's quite fitting, given that I've just been chosen as the first female Contender. Ever. Well, not the first, since the other two Zones have probably already picked what with the time difference, but she is the first from her Zone. The first ever from Zone Three.

"Eavan?" Mayor Reyes called out again. She searched the crowd for any signs of someone stepping forward, and for a moment I considered not moving, staying right where I was and letting her pick someone else's name. But I shook that thought off. That was horrible. I would accept my fate, because, because why? Why would I accept my fate? Because they'll kill everyone who knows you. The little voice of reason in the back of her head spoke up. It had a point. The Citadel knew a lot, including everyone I had ever interacted with. At the beginning, before the Citadel had full power, there was a lot of fighting, a lot up uprisings. But the Citadel knew something we didn't and when they took prisoners those prisoners became soldiers for the Citadel. No one knows what happens in there, because no one has ever escaped. The Citadel was the most effective conversion camp of them all.

One of the girls behind be prodded my back and I glared at her. She looked to young a frightened that I forgot for a moment that she was my age, twenty three. I looked at all the faces around me, we were the third oldest group that could become a Contender, but everyone looked so young, so helpless. I probably looked the same, but that's something I could use to my advantage. I raised my head and marched forward, a path clearing for me. I didn't try to hide my shaking, I wouldn't have been able to anyway, but I curled my hands into tight fists to give off the illusion that no matter how scared I am, I was not going to just lay down and take it. I didn't look very intimidating, I was tall sure, but because of my luxurious way of living, I was a little pudgy around the stomach. Despite that, I was strong, very strong, and I could move fast when I need to. I maybe wasn't as big of a threat as others, but I wouldn't die without a fight.

I wasn't going to win, I knew that much, but maybe I would die around the middle? I wasn't sure, and I tried remembering everything The Hunger Games had taught me about survival, which honestly aside from my archer lessons, was next to nothing. I walked up to the stage where the Mayor was waiting for me, and had me stand next to her. There was no volunteering in the Hecatomb. Your name gets drawn, you are a Contender. There is no changing that. I tuned out most of what she was saying next, and only tuned back in when she called the first male Contender's name. Spider O'Riley. A silly fist name, but a name nonetheless. He was a spindly sixteen year old, his eyes big in his head and unblinking, just like a real spider. It was freaky. We shook hands and he stood to Mayor Reyes right, waiting for the next woman to be called.

I almost didn't catch the name called, but it clicked when I saw her walk towards the stage. Nyima Basnet. Nyima! I was suddenly horrified, because Nyima was exactly the wrong person to be heading for this death trap. For starters, she's Tibetan, which I found out only by over hearing the Tow Hall staff so rudely mock her. And another thing, she's the sweetest person I had ever met, which technically we haven't formally met, but whatever. She is pure, and kind hearted, and everything good about a person. But most of all, she is peaceful. She's physically stepped in between fights to break them up, using only her words. Sometimes she got injured in the process, which I'm sure if you looked closely, you'd be able to see some healing bruises.

She steadily walked up the stage and across to the other Contenders, and shook all of our hands mechanically. I caught her eye, and in that small moment, I vowed to myself that I would make sure she won the first ever Hecatomb.

#short story slam 2020 #short story #short story slam

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